Music Reviews

Oct 8, 2006 - Pianist Horacio Gutierrez and the Reno Philharmonic play favorites and win

By By Jack Neal

Remember the heart of opera and the heart of symphony LPs with America’s most loved classics glued together for popular consumption? Conductor Barry Jekowsky has mastered that programmatic technique, giving Reno Philharmonic concertgoers large doses of the most beloved music extant in the symphonic repertory.

The current Reno Philharmonic MasterClassics concerts are a strong case in point. Sunday’s concert (10/8/06) opened with Aaron Copland’s stirring “Fanfare for the Common Man,” moved elegantly and feverishly through Prokofiev’s athletic and attractive Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major, then closed with Brahms’s majestic Symphony No. 1 in C Minor.

Pianist Horacio Gutierrez was the perfect choice as guest artist for the Prokofiev. In his first engagement in Reno since the orchestra cancelled its September 11, 2001 concert, Gutierrez dazzled his way through the concerto’s volley of notes and difficulties with ease. He also brought enormous musicality and lyricism to the work’s more meditative passages, especially in the second movement with its sprinklings of haunting utterances.

Gutierrez is a consummate artist whose sense of taste and keen musical judgment turns his performances into revelatory experiences, more about a composer’s intentions than a performer’s need to hold center stage. That Gutierrez does both without damaging the other is a testament to his abilities as a profound musician with something to say and his talent as a showman with nothing to hide. His take on the Prokofiev is impressive as are Jekowsky’s and the orchestra’s sublime collaboration.

And who can resist Copland’s profound “Fanfare for the Common Man.” It’s a moving statement to how uncommon the common man really is. A work celebrating heroes without public acclaim is a work that fits in a touching way the reasons why the 9/11 concert Gutierrez was to have played was cancelled. How better to commemorate that dark day than with Copland’s moving, simple statement to human majesty. As splendidly played by the Philharmonic’s brass and percussion, “Fanfare for the Common Man” is a sweeping tribute to unsung heroes everywhere.

With his Symphony No. 1 Brahms became the greatest writer of symphonies since Beethoven. His Symphony No. 1 is of epic proportions. The first movement has a restlessness, a dramatic struggle, and an intensity none of which were missed in the penetrating, full-throttle interpretation Jekowsky envisioned and the orchestra provided.

The second movement is poetic in its sublime beauty and simplicity. Both affecting ecstasy and deep-felt introspection make the movement and its presentation by the Reno Philharmonic one of the great performance moments of Jekowsky’s tenure here. The third movement is graceful, light and buoyant. The fourth – an exultant song of joy with a breathless rush to its conclusion and into memory as one of the wonders of symphonic literature and one of the Reno Philharmonic’s most memorable, lushly romantic performances.

The concert will be repeated Tuesday (10/10/06) at 7:30 at Reno’s Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts.

Reno Philharmonic MasterClassics concerts are played at the Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts, 100 South Virginia Street, Reno, Nevada. The orchestra’s next series of concerts are November 19 and 21, 2006, featuring cellists Peter Lenz and John Lenz and the music of Vivaldi. Nielsen and Beethoven . For information call 775-323-6393.