There were 3 works from the 20th century and one form the 21st, by23-year-old Takuma Itoh , winner of the PVSO’s first Young Composer Competition.  The opening work was Ulysses Kay’s Of New Horizons, which also provided the title for the evening’s program, and itself won an award in its day.  It was composed in 1944 when the end of World War II was in sight and the nation could begin to look towards a brighter future than had seemed possible in the previous decade and a half.  Its rhythm seems to propel it forward like a machine or a locomotive.  The brass dominates with some melodies in the strings in the central section.  Performance was crisp and clean once it got under way.

Itoh’s Concerto for Orchestra followed.  It is an arrangement made in 2007 of his 2005 Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra, a commission from the New York Youth Symphony, in which Itoh distributed the virtuosic passages for the soloists amongst the members of the orchestra itself.  There is plenty of brass and percussion here, too, but considerably more strings and woodwinds than in the Kay.  It, too, had some interesting melodies that appeared and returned.  It demonstrated masterful orchestration and put the musicians through their paces.  Although it is not at all derivative of it, it brought to mind in some ways Ravel’s Boléro, perhaps the best-known tour de force of orchestration.  Curiously, it includes some passages with Ravelian rhythms: a waltz-like one in the central portion and a galloping one near the end that would be heard again later in the evening’s concluding work, that Itoh undoubtedly used sub-consciously.  It also has an Impressionist feel in its opening, suggesting a sunrise, not unlike the dawn movement that opens the same Ravel work, again undoubtedly used subconsciously and without being derivative.

After the pause, the chorus came onto the stage along with bass-baritone Stephen Bryant for Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs, set to texts of 16th century metaphysical poet George Herbert.  Vaughan Williams began this work in 1906, but then went to Paris to study with Ravel for a year or so in 1908.  This was the 1st work he completed when he returned home and it was premièred at the Three Choirs Festival in Worcester in 1911.  The fan-shaped hall was not helpful to the soloist, so the quiet lyrical beauty of this piece was not as effectively communicated as the more lively and brash ambiance of the previous works, unfortunately, though the performance was lovely.

The final work was Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2, essentially the 2nd half of the ballet composed for Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes.  The musicians and wordless chorus were at their peak in this, giving a rich, textured sound, as fine and as full as that of many a major orchestra, although the hall’s acoustic did not serve it well in the softer passages.  There was some especially fine flute work from Jan Puchalski and Meg Friedrich.  This, like the Itoh, is a show-off piece, and both showed the organization off very flatteringly.

The program book included the usual fine notes by principal oboist Zeke Hecker, who also gave a pre-concert talk that was not a mere repetition of them, and in which he emphasized the vast difference between listening to a recording of a work and hearing it in live performance because the colors come through so much better in the latter than any sound system, regardless of its quality and price, can ever render them.  It is akin to seeing a work of art on the walls of a museum and a reproduction of it in a magazine: the colors simply aren’t true.  He also introduced Itoh, who spoke briefly about his piece.  He was born in Japan, moved to Northern California as a child, earned his BM at Rice University, and just completed his MM at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor where he studied with William Bolcom.  He heads to Cornell in the fall for a doctorate.  He has also studied with Bright Sheng.  His other compositions to date have been primarily chamber music, including a sonata for saxophone and piano, one vocal piece, and some electronic works.  The Concerto was his 1st orchestral work, but he has written a couple of others since.