Auburn Symphony's 'Romancing the Exotic'
By Charles Atthill
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12:01 a.m. PT May 1, 2008
I try to be good. I shop locally. I go to local plays, movies and concerts. But sometimes I just can't help myself and have to go South of the Border. And so, passport in hand, I ventured forth to Placer County to hear the Auburn Symphony under Maestro Michael Goodwin in the last of its 2007-8 subscription concerts at Auburn's Placer High School.
The Symphony's 20-year history and considerable reputation as a volunteer, community orchestra is a good reminder of the great music to be heard just a stone's throw away.
The program, dubbed "Romancing the Exotic," was a full-on dive into the Romantic.
Vaughan Williams 1909 overture "The Wasps," incidental music for a classical Greek comedy, is quirky and entertaining. It has nothing to do with wasps (except for the opening buzzing) and does not suggest Greece, but taken at a lively tempo it alerted us to an evening of energetic orchestral vigor.
Passion followed. Dvorak's Cello Concerto is one of the great concertos. Composer Brahms was so impressed that he wished he had written one too. Dvorak himself would have been thrilled by the soloist, the extraordinarily talented 22-year-old Shanghai-native, Tina Guo, a regular performer at local concerts.
Guo projected fiery eloquence in the opening, troubled intensity in the slow movement - a love song for Dvorak's unrequited love for his sister-in-law, and agonized ardor in the finale. It was a lush and technically dazzling performance. Maestro Goodwin and the orchestra must have been there too, but all eyes and ears were on the stunning Guo.
The program ended with works by Liszt. His symphonic poem "Les Preludes" is like a compressed symphony, an idealized story of an artist's journey through the life's loves, turmoil, refuge, strife and conquest. Goodwin drew out the best from his players, with the brass section on good form, in this musically, and certainly technically, ambitious work. The final work was the blockbuster Hungarian Rhapsody #2. More familiar as a virtuoso rite of passage for aspiring pianists, it made a fine show-piece for the orchestra.
The surprise of the evening was that I recognized so few of the regulars to be seen at Nevada County concerts. "That was a great program," I heard a patron say, and he was right. Perhaps we Northerners should update our visas and be prepared to travel South occasionally.
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Charles Atthill lives in Alta Sierra. His wife had to control his inclination to sing along.
