Scott Cantrell

Lively tempos, but dynamics lacked luster

03:42 PM CDT on Friday, September 23, 2005

By SCOTT CANTRELL / The Dallas Morning News

This early in the academic year, a university orchestra is virtually a pickup band. Only three weeks into the fall semester, though, Southern Methodist University's Meadows Symphony Orchestra gave a powerful performance Sunday afternoon of the Brahms First Symphony. Completing the program, at Caruth Auditorium, were two other "firsts": the First Essay for Orchestra by Samuel Barber and Prokofiev's First Piano Concerto.

Lesser conductors let Brahms bog down. But, while allowing ample "give" at transitions, Meadows music director Paul Phillips kept this Brahms First pressing onward.

The first movement was unhurried but in no doubt of direction. Performers and musicologists will probably always argue about the "right" tempo for the introduction, with its pounding timpani and surging violins. What does that "Un poco sostenuto" marking – "a little sustained" – really mean? Should it be noticeably slower than the main Allegro or more or less at the same pulse? Sensibly, Dr. Phillips opted for the latter solution, giving irresistible dramatic sweep to the whole movement.

The middle movements were nicely mobile, with lovingly phrased cameos from oboist Katie Sellmansberger and clarinetist Casey Marsrow. A violin section with a big, incandescent sound is a Meadows signature, and this year's horn section sounded already in its glory. But the basses need work playing in tune and with more subtlety.

The main reservation was that too much of the playing, from pianissimo to fortissimo, was simply too loud. That's hard to control in a concert hall with about half the cubic space needed for an orchestra's sound to bloom and blend. But some of the balances could have been better gauged. Violinist Aisha Dossumova's solos were hard to hear, and elsewhere accompaniments occasionally dominated more important music.

In the concert's first half the acoustical louvers on the side walls were left open, which subtracted most of the room's resonance and dulled harmonics. Presumably this was to tame the Barber and Prokofiev, both of which have some loud and very bright scorings. But it sucked the life out of the music.

Both performances sounded carefully rehearsed but too carefully played. One missed the sweep so stirring in the Brahms, and the Prokofiev never quite sparkled.

Pianist Lucille Chung, an alumna of SMU as well as the Juilliard School and Curtis Institute of Music, played nimbly. But she sounded a little pressed in the piano's first fast section, and in general she evinced little real interaction with the orchestra. Dr. Phillips watched her like a hawk, trying to keep things together, but great concerto performances are products of mutual give-and-take.

E-mail scantrell@dallasnews.com