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Barn burners bracket a lush 'Serenade'

The Florida Orchestra repeats its program at 7:30 p.m. today at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center in Tampa.

By JOHN FLEMING
Published April 18, 2005

CLEARWATER - For pure sonic pleasure, it would be tough to top this weekend's Florida Orchestra program. It is bracketed by a pair of barn burners, Dvorak's Carnival Overture and a suite from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake . In between is Bernstein's Serenade, with violin soloist Robert McDuffie.

Associate conductor Susan Haig inherited the program from Jahja Ling, who dropped out because of the impending birth of his child in California. Haig led an outstanding concert Sunday night at Ruth Eckerd Hall.

There is no better curtain raiser than the rousing Carnival Overture , which features an English horn solo reminiscent of the one in Dvorak's New World Symphony . The solo was played by Joyce James, who retired last season but returned to do the honors.

Haig is good at preparing an audience for a piece, and she brought out McDuffie for a little preview of Serenade, with the violinist and orchestra playing examples of what to listen for. McDuffie, dispensing with the usual black tie and tails for a casual all-black look, recalled advice Bernstein gave him when he was learning the piece: "Just think of love. You'll be fine."

Serenade is one of Bernstein's near-masterpieces, a violin concerto in all but name that imagines the dialogue on love of Plato's Symposium. McDuffie is an ideal interpreter with the sweet-toned lushness of his sound, seemingly effortless technique and theatrical flair, as in the almost vicious manner in which he dug into the strings at passionate junctures. He and principal cello James Connors had an expert duet in the Socrates section.

Written around the same time as West Side Story , the five movements of Serenade contain quotations from the musical. In the adagio of Agathon, McDuffie was like the violinistic version of a Broadway leading man, playing a wonderfully moving rendition of a tune similar to Maria.

Swan Lake appeared to bring out the grand gestures in Haig, usually on the minimalistic side in her movement on the podium, and the performance was sumptuous. The strings had sounded sluggish in the quicksilver passages of the Dvorak overture, but they were much better in the Tchaikovsky ballet score. There were notable solos by guest concertmaster Jeff Multer, principal harp Anna Kate Mackle, principal trumpet Rob Smith and assistant principal oboe Lane Lederer.

[Last modified April 18, 2005, 00:52:13]