Music, Review

Pro Musica Colorado

A review by Marc Shulgold


For a small ensemble of 21 strings, Pro Musica Colorado appears willing to take on big challenges- as was demonstrated at the first of two weekend concerts on Friday night, in a program titled “American Seasons”.

Cynthia Katsarelis

Cynthia Katsarelis, Conductor

Led by Cynthia Katsarelis, an energetic, disciplined conductor, this ambitious group tackled some mighty tricky music in St. John’s Cathedral in Denver. Fortunately for the appreciative, attentive audience, the players were more than up to the task.  The music-making was consistently spot-on, enhanced by the solid leadership of Katsarelis.

The major piece on the program – one that helped give the concert its name – was Philip Glass’ Second Violin Concerto (2009), known as “The American Four Seasons.” It’s a big, sprawling work, consisting of four orchestral movements, alternating with four unaccompanied pieces for the soloist.  As the conductor explained from the podium, both Glass and his collaborator, Robert McDuffie, couldn’t agree on which of the four movements corresponded with which season.

Not that any of the segments of this 40-minute work had (to these ears) anything to do with any season.  They could have just as well been intended as descriptions of the four quarters of a basketball game.  Just as we’ve come to expect from the American minimalist, Glass relied here on the usual assortment of slow, fast and really fast repeated arpeggios of familiar chords, either in four-beat or three-beat pulses.  Easy on the ears, but not particularly deep in emotional content.

Yumi Hwang-Williams, Violin

Yumi Hwang-Williams, Violin

Handling the busy solo duties was the ever-dependable Yumi Hwang-Williams, concertmaster of the Colorado Symphony, who seemed not the least bothered by the endless parade of notes the composer set forth.  Thankfully, her unaccompanied solos emerged with a much-needed degree of soul and an engaging communicativeness. The violinist displayed a gentle approach in her phrasing of these “Songs”, and then cranked up the virtuoso meter in her work during the ensuing orchestral episodes.

Katsarelis’ players likewise had little trouble with all those musical cascades, although the vastness of St. John’s occasionally turned the accompaniment into a muddy fountain.

Philip Glass

Philip Glass

Amidst the churning bass lines of the final two movements came the unexpected ripples from an electronic keyboard, nimbly handled by Bilinda Lou.

Earlier, Pro Musica offered the premiers of a 9-minute lament by the young Boulder-based composer Daniel Cox, titled “….I give you my sprig of lilac” – that line being drawn from Whitman’s “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d.”  Cox’s prize-winning piece (selected at the University of Colorado’s Composition Competition) began with  solemn, low-ranging passages alternating with isolated high harmonics, before settling into a brief hymn, a pleasing tune slightly reminiscent of a Vaughn Williams string-orchestra work.  And, just as the English composer had done back in the day, Cox isolated four first-desk players from the ensemble, thus adding an effective element of intimacy to this thoughtful piece.

Dan Cox, composer

Dan Cox, composer

Speaking of Vaughn Williams and his fondness for traditional hymns and small ensembles within larger ones, the first half concluded with a work containing all of that: his familiar “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.”  This seemed a curious program mate, considering its obvious similarity with the new work that preceded it.

No matter. Pro Musica’s performance of this magnificent opus was so polished and splendidly shaped, that it all but erased, alas, any memories of Cox’s composition.  Here, the conductor wisely took advantage of the spaciousness of St. John’s alter, placing half her players back in the apse and the other half up front in the transept.  This separation (in keeping with Vaughn Williams’ wishes) added greatly to the music’s dramatic contrasts and overall warmth.  The playing from first ethereal note to last, was flawless and proved an ideal choice

Ralph Vaughn Williams as a young composer

Ralph Vaughn Williams as a young composer

for the grand, picturesque setting.

The program will be repeated at 7:30 p.m. today (February 7th)  in First United Methodist Church, 1421 Spruce Street, Boulder.  A pre-concert talk will be presented at 6:30 p.m.  Information: 720-443-0565 or www.promusicacolorado.com.

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