Out West With the BSO: The critical view after the first concert
And now a few words from the Southern California critical community about the Baltimore Symphony performance Wednesday at the Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa with Marin Alsop conducting, percussionist Colin Currie as soloist: Timothy Mangan, Orange County Register: Jennifer Higdon's Grammy-winning Percussion Concerto took the center spot in the program.
It certainly is an entertaining show, especially with percussionist Colin Currie as soloist, running around stage to his various set ups and pounding the living daylights out of them ...
Alsop led it enthusiastically.
Her moment, and the orchestra's, to shine, though, came ... with a performance of Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5. We've heard this work a few times in recent seasons here, including with some world class ensembles. If this performance didn't quite reach the sheer luxury and virtuosic brilliance of those others, it had plenty going for it.
The Baltimore Symphony sounded ...
Alsop dug into the work unrelentingly. Her phrasing never became heavy or overbearing, though, thanks to her animated rhythms, purposeful accents and forward momentum. It was a fiery and thrilling performance.
Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times: An uncommon woman, Alsop began her program Wednesday by pairing Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” with Joan Tower’s cheeky “Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman.” That was followed by Jennifer Higdon’s Percussion Concerto. It is, unfortunately, a commonplace concerto, but Alsop ended with a dynamic performance of Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5 ... Alsop ... made the symphony sound intriguingly American.
She is a conductor who insists on rhythmic cogency, sometimes to the point of hammering. That can be an enlivening approach, and it was here ...
The Baltimore brass players don’t hold back. The orchestra has color, especially in its woodwinds. It was wonderful to hear the violins’ competing rhythms of two against three in the slow movement as tartly distinct, not Romantic and misty ...
Alsop did something new. She made a neo-Classical counterrevolutionary symphony feel newly revolutionary.
Photo Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times.
