Music Reviews

Apr 16, 2007 - The Reno Chamber Orchestra's fond bon voyage to retiring violinist Phillip Ruder

By By Jack Neal

Violinist Phillip Ruder, concertmaster for the Reno Philharmonic and the Reno Chamber Orchestra for the past thirteen years, is a music critic's worst nightmare. He's so musically perfect and so humanely sensitive it's impossible to write the kind of career-inflating review that readers love to hate.

So much for readership through derogatory reputation.

Soloing for the last time (sadly, he's retiring) via Mozart's exquisite Sinfonia Concertante with co-soloist violist Theodore Kuchar, the RCO's conductor, Mr. Ruder exited as he arrived – in excellent musical shape with something interesting, and moving to say. And what better way to say it than with the exceptional viola playing of Theodore Kuchar as the other half of a collaboration made, if not in heaven, at least in the warm acoustical environs of Reno's Nightingale Concert Hall.

Mozart, a most tasteful composer of virtuoso music, created a dream-piece double concerto filled with lovely melodies and exciting flashes of pyrotechnics that fits the effusive gifts Messieurs Ruder and Kuchar display with such deft ease. Saturday night's audience (4/14/07), well aware of Mr. Ruder's impending departure, bestowed a spontaneous and deserved standing ovation, both for an excellent performance and a body of work lasting for over a decade that has brought nothing but listening pleasure to Northern Nevada concertgoers.

Salieri, Mozart's nemesis from "Amadeus" days, was also on board. The orchestra brought forth a solid rendering, buoyant in fact, of his Symphony in D Major, "Sinfonia Veneziana."

Martinu's idiosyncratic, mysterious Toccata e due canzoni featuring pianist James Winn, is the breath-of-fresh-air type work for which Maestro Kuchar is so noted. Rooted in post World War II harmonies, the Martinu's intensity and penetrating lyricism makes for a magnetic, accessible work. The performance was at moments curiously vague, a toccata of sorts of restless confusion. Only the Canzone No. 2 was included. Its dark, melancholy nature handsomely brought to life by Winn, Kuchar and orchestra.

Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks was a go-for-Baroque class-act. Rich, ultra precise, and immaculate in detail, the performance with wonderful brasses led by impeccable trumpeter Paul Lenz was fit for a king; a fitting grand finale for Theodore Kuchar's fourth brilliant season as the RCO's conductor and music director.

All Reno Chamber Orchestra subscription concerts are played at Nightingale Concert Hall, 900 North Virginia Street, Reno, NV. These two season finale concerts were performed Saturday, April 14, 2007, at 8 p.m. and Sunday, April 15, 2007, at 2 p.m. For information about Reno Chamber Orchestra concerts and events call 775-348-9413.