Music Reviews

Sep 27, 2003 - Conductor Theodore Kuchar and the Reno Chamber Orchestra make sensational music together

By Jack Neal

Old orchestra. New twist.

The Reno Chamber Orchestra opened its season Saturday night (9/27/2003) under the baton of its new conductor, Theodore Kuchar. It was a sensational teaming of talent that got Reno's so-called musician's orchestra galloping off to a new era of music making hitting on all eight cylinders and delivering an evening of thrilling performances.

With pianist Sergei Babayan on board to play Prokofiev's powerfully explosive Piano Concerto No. 2, the orchestra's new maestro is living up to the high, high bar of promise his appointment following his superb concert with the orchestra last spring (flush with its daring program) seemed to hold.

After but two up-close-and-personal hearings here with this highly recorded maestro, it's obvious that freshness of spirit, impeccable musicianship and revelatory interpretations are going to be the order of the day during Kuchar's stewardship. The Prokofiev was a given. How could this dynamic work so powerfully brought off pianistically by Babayan and orchestrally by everyone else not muscle its way to fascination?

What wasn't so much a given was de Falla's Three Cornered Hat Suite No. 1 and Mendelssohn's reverential Symphony No. 5, the "Reformation." Both were equally satisfying, not for their muscle, but for their finesse, and - particularly the de Falla - their sense of atmosphere and presence.

Kuchar's de Falla was an intoxicating pursuit of atmosphere. Shapely, voluptuous and erotic, Kuchar's Three Cornered Hat was awash in hypnotic Spanish colors and flavors. Wonderfully musical playing by bassoonist Holly Hazlett-Stevens was a noteable assist on the way to the de Falla's sense of fun and sensuousness. Kuchar's subtle musical expressiveness made de Falla's elixir of exotic rhythms and tunes a lush and breezy affair.

The Mendelssohn, a wonderful piece in the right hands, in the wrong hands is in grave danger of giving way to trite histrionics. Mendelossohn's keen theatrical instincts are very much in evidence with this orchestral painting drawn from the reformation message. Mendelssohn's moving use of the "A Mighty Fortess is our God" theme and the heavenly use of the strings as a transcendent beacon of hope can be either cloyingly sentimental or movingly spiritual. Kuchar landed on the side of exalted spirituality. It was a sweeping and moving experience, with some of Mendelsson's charm - the effervescent second movement - spilling forth along the way.

As grand as the de Falla and the Mendelssohn were, any new kid on the block wants to make an impression and Kuchar made his Saturday night at Nightingale Concert Hall with the Prokofiev. The selection of Babayan as pianist, a totally assured, virtuoso and brilliant artist, was part of Kuchar's master plan for a blazingly successful opening of his tenure with the RCO.

An astonishing display piece for any pianist, the Prokofiev is much, much more. At one moment powerful and profound, at another ethereal and touching, this dynamic, intense work is gripping, dramatic and epic in every way. After being "taunted" for what he called his "rather elementary use of harmonics," Prokofiev was pushed into more innovative directions. That taunting transformed Prokofiev's music into "expressions," as he called them, "of strong emotions."

Strong emotions are what his second piano concerto is about. I can think of no other 20th century composer who's work uses bare-bones, yet rhapsodic lyricism, astringent harmonies, and cataclysmic rhythms more affectingly to build theartrical themes that both disturb and soothe, distress and enrich with such enigmatic and entrancing results. And so it was with Babayan, Kuchar and the orchestra's splendid performance of Prokofiev's second piano concerto. As superbly as it was written, it was superbly performed. Babayan's keyboard wizardry is many notches above the merely sensational. Ditto for Kuchar's inspired podium abilities and the orchestra he's inspiring.

The Reno Chamber Orchestra's next concert, October 25, 2003, will feature the music of Bartok, Handel, Debussy and Mozart. With harpist Yolanda Kondonassis and guest conductor Ross Pople. All Reno Chamber Orchestra subscription concerts can be heard at Nightingale Concert Hall on the University of Nevada Reno campus, 900 North Virginia, Street, Reno. For information about Reno Chamber Orchestra concerts and events call 775-348 9413.