REVIEW: ANCHORAGE SYMPHONY

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Posted: February 28, 2009 - 11:19 pm

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By MAIA NOLAN
Giora Schmidt, Navah Perlman and Zuill Bailey(l-r): Trio performed with Anchorage Symphony on Feb. 28.

It’s always nice to hear music performed in person by real live humans. The Anchorage Symphony Orchestra presented an extremely personable program Saturday night, offering up three selections that, in their own ways, seemed to emphasize the musicians’ humanity.

The program opened with Rossini’s Overture to “The Barber of Seville,” a ubiquitously orchestral-sounding piece that’s often used in popular culture to stand in for all things classical. You’d recognize the melody, even if only from the Bugs Bunny cartoon “Rabbit of Seville,” in which Elmer Fudd chases Bugs into a performance of the opera. The nice thing about hearing a familiar piece performed live by a competent orchestra is that there’s always something new to discover – some nuance you hadn’t noticed before. In this case, the dynamic contrast was particularly noticeable, as was the doubling of the melody in the winds.

Even the occasional imperfection added to the experience; a couple of slipped notes were actually a nice reassurance that the musicians are human beings performing live.

The Rossini was followed by Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, featuring the Perlman/Schmidt/Bailey trio. The trio’s performance was as visually interesting as it was musically rich. Cellist Zuill Bailey (who bears more than a passing resemblance to Antonio Banderas) seemed to be emotionally invested in the piece, expressing each note in his face as well as through his cello. At times he almost appeared to be singing along. Violinist Giora Schmidt frowned intently throughout the first movement, finally breaking into a smile midway through the Largo. After that, he seemed to relax, and he and Bailey shot playful looks back and forth as each of their musical parts wove into and out of the other. Pianist Navah Perlman played just as beautifully, but faced away from her counterparts, focused more on her own performance.

The rousing concerto earned the predictable Atwood standing ovation, and the trio reciprocated with an encore: a lovely arrangement of “Danny Boy” that capitalized on Bailey’s passion with a haunting cello melody.

Mendelssohn’s “Scottish” Symphony (No. 3 in A minor) rounded out the evening, and while it was generally good, the orchestra seemed to tire somewhat as it moved deeper into the piece, leaving some passages lacking in precision. I enjoyed it more, however, than did the woman sitting in front of me; she seemed personally offended by conductor Randall Fleischer’s tempo in the Adagio movement, shaking her head, gesturing to the program and conducting to herself, a beat or two slower than the orchestra.

The audience as a whole was not short on enthusiasm. There is a knowing smile conductors give their ensembles on those occasions when the audience, caught up in the moment, applauds between movements rather than waiting for the end of the piece, and it’s a good bet that Fleischer exchanged a fair few of these smiles with the orchestra as, movement after movement, the audience expressed its approval. It was fitting, though – after all, an audience is only human, too.

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