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Show Symphony review "Hiroicfinale sparks concert by DON GRAVES Chronicle Staff Tuesday Maestro Maurice Abra-vanel Abra-vanel opened his 26th season with the Utah Symphony before a packed pack-ed house playing a program guaranteed guaran-teed to please: Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Tchaikov-sky, and Beethoven. The orchestra sounds fuller this year, with an especially rich string section. The prelude to "Die Meistersing-er" Meistersing-er" was good, mainly because of the clean woodwind parts, and the beautiful low brass work. The ensemble en-semble war marred only by the blatty sounds coming from the trumpet section. Unfortunately the As is usual, the Tabernacle had ite own PrablemS' b3d aCCU e fl ng heat which only got worse as 8 000 people started sweating n the completely inadequate venation ven-ation (or rather, the lack o v epilation), ep-ilation), and the wooden pews which are no con ducive to concert enjoyment Sa Lake does need a concert hall worthy of the Symphony. A note of tragedy. The death of Eugene Foster, principle flute this summer left a great gap In the orchestra. or-chestra. He was one of the most consummate musicians I have known, and a great human being as well. The paper's best wishes to the new principle flutist, Henry Hoffman, and we hope that his stay with the Symphony is long and happy. , The next subscription concert wlil be October 21, in the Tabernacle, Taber-nacle, and will feature works by Mendelsohn, Scriabin, Gershwin, and Respighi. Plan to attend: it should be a good one. "1 work never became exciting because be-cause of the dragging tempos. The Tchaikovsky "Second Symphony" Symp-hony" was new to the orchestra and most of the audience al.ke It has unfortunately been eclipsed by the more dramatic later works, but Abravanel showed what we have been missing all these years because the work is full of charm and invention. Beginning with beautifully beau-tifully played horn and bassoon solos, Abravanel lead a well-paced performance, with the strings being be-ing at times both sloppy and brilliant. brilli-ant. He concluded the work with a smashing ending. Beethoven's "Fifth Symphony concluded the concert. After a lax first movement marred by poor balancing bal-ancing of inner lines, the Maestro gave a lucid second, with an especially espe-cially rich low string sound, and good use of rubato. After a beautiful beauti-ful transition into the last movement move-ment he concluded with the most heroic finale I have ever heard in a live performance. |
