by Marvin J. Ward

Lexington, MA, 8 February 2009.  Yesterday evening, the Lexington Symphony, its Music Director Jonathan McPhee conducting, played a group of infrequently heard works for the 3rd program in its current season in its now permanent home of the Isaac Cary Memorial Hall in the town’s center.  Their shared elements were the use of orchestral colors to evoke places, events, or emotions.

The evening opened with the version for string orchestra of Puccini’s I Crisantemi (Chrysanthemums), the elegy he claims to have written in a single evening in 1890 upon learning of the death of his friend, Amadeo of Savoy, Duke of Aosta, originally for string quartet.  Like Barber’s Adagio for Strings, which began its life as the 2nd movement of his 1st string quartet, this 8-minute work is most often heard today in this version, but I have not been able to determine whether Puccini prepared it, as Barber did the Adagio, or another.  The musicians immediately established the standard for the evening of precise, crisp playing and excellent dynamic control, with a rich warm sound in this case, appropriate for the darkness of the piece’s mood.

This was followed by Sleeping in Air, by Greater Boston area composer Rodney Lister, written for the New England Conservatory’s Preparatory School’s Youth Repertory Orchestra in 1994, about a century later, and a work of similar length.  Lister, who wrote the program notes and was in the hall, said that he was inspired by children’s author Randall Jarrell’s poem, “A Bat is Born,” whose text was also supplied.  The work is not a song, but seeks to evoke the sounds of a bat, nesting and in flight, down to the pings of its navigational sonar.  It was a fascinating piece, light, pleasing, and entertaining, evocative of a nocturnal habitat, even eerie sounding at times, but by no means froth, and percussionist Aaron Trant had a great chance to shine.

The meat of the 1st half was a work by the aforementioned Samuel Barber, his Knoxville: Summer of 1915, composed in 1947 and premièred by soprano Eleanor Steber, its commissioner, in 1948, using a prose poem of James Agee written in 1938 evoking the time when he was 5.  Barber realized that he shared a number of common experiences with Agee, in particular experiencing the death of a grandfather at the age of 5, and felt that the general activities and the mood evoked by the text were similar to his recollections of his own family when he was that age, although they lived in West Chester, PA.  The whole evokes a period when life proceeded at a slower pace than it does today, a pace that some members of the audience could easily remember, but which undoubtedly seemed completely foreign to a large number of others.  The evening’s soloist was Janna Baty, Lexington native returning in a kind of homecoming.

This is an inspired work, perhaps one of the major milestones in 20th-century American Art Song.  The conjunction of the sensibilities of the poet and the composer resulted in a work of transcendent beauty.  Yet it is not very frequently performed.  That is because it is deceptive, far more difficult to pull off than it at first appears, with a broad range of emotions and moods to evoke in a relatively brief span of about 14-15 minutes.  Baty managed the abrupt shifts magnificently.  McPhee kept the orchestra on track in its support.  Unfortunately, the generally bright acoustic of the hall, which is remarkably good for orchestral sound for this cookie-cutter WPA structure that has identical siblings all over the country – a good blend yet maintaining the audibility of individual sections – does not favor a singer nearly as well.  Baty was covered by the orchestra in some of the louder sections to the extent that her words were inaudible in spite of her excellent enunciation.  Except for this, it was a fine rendition.

The 2nd half was filled with Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 5, dating from 1943, just 5 years before the Barber, but featuring a totally different sound with its use of typically English modal keys.  Indeed, more than evoking a mood, activity, or event, it remains far more abstract simply presenting its Englishness, as distinct from a Germanic or a French symphonic expression.  Like the Barber, this is not a work easy to get across to an audience: It doesn’t grab and carry a listener the way a Romantic symphony does. The performance was of high quality, brilliant and nuanced, and persuasive, the musicians managing the shifts between the movements as deftly as Baty had those in the Barber, and rose to the challenges that the work presents.  McPhee, who studied in England, chooses to conduct without a baton, even in these modern works, as historically informed performance conductors do with Baroque and Classical works.

McPhee gave a pre-concert talk in which he provided a sort of capsule analysis of each work, illustrated with a few recorded snippets of the Barber and Vaughan Williams, and recorded demonstrations of scales in various standard and modal keys – a good compare and contrast.  Some of his comments, however, were repetitious of the information in the excellent printed program notes, prepared by various members of the orchestra, and might have been better eliminated in favor of shortening the talk or giving a few more illustrative recorded examples.

The Lexington Symphony is only 14.  Starting an organization like this in these times, when many classical music entities are failing – Connecticut Opera has just closed down after 67 years, is a daunting challenge, but it seems to have been met in this instance.  The city has demonstrated its pleasure and commitment by investing in acoustical, lighting, and stage improvements to the hall so that it could become the permanent home.  The citizens turn out in large numbers of all generations to hear; the hall is often sold out, I am told, although the least desirable seats under the balcony were mostly empty last night.  The symphony offered an apparently hugely successful program to several hundred 3rd graders who came to Cary Hall as a field trip a few weeks ago, in which the musicians introduced the children to the various instruments and demonstrated them as well as playing a few works.  Many of the children wrote letters of response and appreciation, some with drawings, that were displayed on easels in the foyer.  We congratulate the organization on its creative programming, fine playing, and immediately evident commitment and dedication, and wish it much continued success.