Some surprising sounds of the season at BPO's Classics concert
Faced with the challenge of choosing a Christmas concert of substantial seasonal music, one might expect BPO Music Director JoAnn Falletta to take the fail-safe route, relying heavily on old favorites that everybody knows and loves.
That would be underestimating Falletta's resourcefulness. She has designed a program in which none of the four works played before intermission has ever been performed on the BPO's Classics Series. And only at the end of the concert do the eternally popular excerpts from "The Nutcracker" and "Messiah" appear to send the audience home happily humming.
Concert Review
Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus
"A Classical Christmas" conducted by JoAnn Falletta on Friday morning in Kleinhans Music Hall. Another performance at 8 p.m. Saturday. For more information, call 885-5000 or visit www.bpo.org.
For a large, appreciative audience, the concert opened on a stage decorated with large snowflakes and icicles with the energetic, vaulting rhythms of the Polonaise from Rimsky-Korsakov's 1895 opera "Christmas Eve." It was a delicious tease, because there is a gorgeous suite from this opera that has this listener's vote for inclusion somewhere down the line.
"Winter" from Glazunov's 1901 ballet "The Seasons" made its BPO debut. Glazunov's style is more European romantic than Russian, and his depictions of frost, ice, hail and snow were evocatively conceived and cleanly orchestrated, especially engaging in the use of harp swirls in the "Ice" variation, with its familiar theme, and in the slowly pulsing waltz rhythms of "Snow."
Concertmaster Michael Ludwig and Principal Second Violin Antoine Lefebvre were soloists in Manfredini's 1718 "Christmas Concerto," a virtually unknown baroque delight. Ludwig and Lefebvre played immaculately together in a role that is less soloistic than a series of conversational exchanges with the orchestra. The first two movements had a lilting pastoral quality, while the Finale was energetic, with unifying references to the earlier themes.
The Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus, prepared by Doreen Rao, joined the orchestra to close the first half with selections from Mendelssohn's 1831 "Vom Himmel Hoch." The celebratory tone was well projected by the pealing choral entrances, while baritone Brian Zunner's warm voice was effective in two arias, and the final chorus offered the familiarity of a Martin Luther hymn.
The fanfarish excitement of Bizet's "Farandole" from "L'Arlesienne" opened the second half, followed by another BPO premiere, the first chorus from Bach's "Christmas Oratorio." Its trumpet-topped lines and the well-etched polyphonic choral exultation were outstanding.
On musical ground that everybody knows, three selections from Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker" were highlighted by the "Waltz of the Flowers," with its sweeping harp adornments.
The concert closed with five excerpts from Handel's "Messiah." Zunner returned for an effective traversal of "The Trumpet Shall Sound," while the choral singing was brisk and crisply accented, almost to the point of staccato attacks at times. Following the centuries-old tradition, the audience was on its feet for the concluding "Hallelujah" chorus.
In the spirit of the season, Falletta and the BPO tossed in an unexpected encore, Leroy Anderson's "Sleigh Ride."
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