Music Reviews

Oct 29, 2005 - Leonard Slatkin and the National Symphony Orchestra thrill at Reno's Pioneer Center

By Jack Neal

For a city of its size and casino and divorce reputation, Reno has an unusually vibrant performing and visual arts scene. That vibrancy is due in part to the fabulous house orchestras that once were staples in all of the city's casino showrooms.



Musicians flocked to the "World's Biggest Little City" like they flocked to Hollywood and the movie studios. The Reno Philharmonic and the Reno Chamber Orchestra, two excellent regional orchestras, are the direct progeny of big-name, casino entertainment.

That's why a visit by a major symphony orchestra such as the National Symphony Orchestra is such a special event. It stimulates the riches that are already here. This remarkable orchestra isn't a threat, it's just another feather in the cap of superb music for Northern Nevada.

Under the leadership of the brilliant American conductor Leonard Slatkin, "America's" orchestra, if you will, has emerged as one of the world's most formidable symphonic ensembles. It certainly made an impact when it performed Thursday night (10/27/05) at Reno's Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts.

Embracing a first half devoted exclusively to American music - Bernstein's Overture to "Candide," Barber's Adagio for Strings, Ives's Variations on America as arranged by William Schuman, and Hovhaness's Symphony No. 2, "Mysterious Mountain" - the power and the glory of this exciting orchestra thrilled with every nuance and phrase.

The program's second half was reserved for Tchaikovsky's virtuosic and dramatic Symphony No. 4 in F minor. There was not one moment when the musicality and the technical wizardry of the orchestra - American half or Russian half - did not thrill.

Credit must go to Maestro Slatkin, in his tenth season with the NSO, who has molded the orchestra's one hundred musicians into a terrific musical force. With powerful brasses, dashing woodwinds, robust strings with a burnished, velvety texture, and a percussion choir as sensitive to the music as I've heard, the orchestra's sound is mature, it's technique is perfection.

Mr. Slatkin's approach to each score is unpretentious, yet very expressive. The Bernstein dazzled, the Barber moved as few musical works can, the Ives was loaded with acerbic commentary, the Hovhaness was an understated utterance of majesty. Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 can be explosive and overbearing. Not this time out. Subtle, lush, lyric and powerful only when it needed to be, the Tchaikovsky was the inspired work Tchaikovsky envisioned.

Two encores, an excerpt from Sir William Walton's "Henry V" film score and an elegant, full-bodied arrangement of The Star Spangled Banner, added goose bumps to all the evening's other emotional highs.

Perhaps even more impressive, if that's possible, the hour-long young persons concert played Friday morning (10/28/05) at 10:00 a.m. was so in touch with youngsters and so magnificently played it was not just loads of high good times, it was captivating and moving. The concert was conducted and emceed by the NSO's associate conductor, Emil de Cou. Mr. De Cou was the perfect host for children. He also delivered a keenly played program. Bravo on both counts.

It's clear by these two wonderfully conceived and brought off concerts, plus a series of master classes at the University of Nevada, Reno during the orcherstra's three days of residence, that the orchestra's management, its conductors and its musicians are dedicated to music education.

The National Symphony Orchestra's Reno events were supported by The John F, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts through a grant from the U.S. Department of Education. "It is a key means," Michael M. Kaiser (President of The Kennedy Center) writes, "by which the Kennedy Center fulfills its mission as the nation's center for the performing arts."

In Reno, Leonard Slatkin, Emil de Cou and The National Symphony Orchestra filled the Kennedy Center's mission with grace, kindness, sublime musicality and an enormous outpouring of humanity. The only jarring note about these two exciting events is that neither concert was sold out. Both deserved standing-room-only crowds.