The headline for my story last week on the pending reopening of the renovated Music Hall asked: “But how will it sound?” The answer, after the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s first concert there on Friday, is: wonderful.
Sonic balances are equalized, the CSO’s command of dynamic and tonal palettes can by fully heard and the sound’s overall presence and immediacy are a marvel.
Our seats were a perfect test site. They were on the first floor under the balcony, where the sound in the past had been frequently muddy and unbalanced. The first thing that struck me was the orchestra’s proximity to our seats, even though we were at the back of the hall. But the hall now is smaller and the stage was thrust forward.
At precisely 8 p.m., the lights dimmed and the orchestra filed in from both sides of the stage to cheers and applause from the capacity audience (mostly white, middle-aged and older). CSO president Jonathan Martin made a mercifully brief speech, thanking the audience, the community and especially donors, and then maestro Louis Langrée, the music director and conductor, emerged in white
tie and tails.
A rousing performance of John Adams’ Short Ride in a Fast Machine opened the concert. The clarity of the brass added more than excitement. The tonal palette’s range was clearly audible and the balance was spot-on. I scribbled on my note pad “YAY” when it ended.
The stage was set for Beethoven’s Piano Concert No. 1 in C, which proved to be another successful demonstration of how well the hall can convey dynamic contrast from smaller ensembles. The concerto opens with hushed phrases from the strings that came through with a delicately textured warmth.
Soloist Kit Armstrong played with assurance and solid technique, the fiendishly difficult passages were transparent and steady. Just as I was hoping for more expression, Armstrong gave the concerto’s second movement a graceful, romantic sensibility. The final movement’s lively rondo was brisk and energetic, with brash flourishes that brought out the rondo’s playful character.
The piano’s center placement in front of the orchestra rendered an immediacy and purity of tone throughout the performance. The orchestral balance was perfection and I was again pleased by the dynamic range that’s now so audible.
For an encore, Armstrong played a fantasia by the English early Baroque composer John Bull, originally written in the 17th century for the virginal, a member of the harpsichord family. It’s a piece intended for an intimate space, and it came off beautifully.
The concert’s second half began with Jonathan Bailey Holland’s Stories from Home, a tone poem commissioned for the reopening that encompasses the history of Music Hall and its neighborhood. It’s an elegiac work, cinematic in structure and tinged with melancholy. The percussion section gets star billing and provides an undercurrent of African rhythms, with the cymbals evoking an eerie soundscape, along with hushed woodwinds. The orchestral textures separate and converge, rising to a crescendo. The brass section soars but never drowns out the strings’ brilliance, to stunning effect.
The concluding work was Scriabin’s Symphony No. 4, Opus 54, or The Poem of Ecstasy, known for its constant harmonic and tonal shifts. Scriabin added an organ to his score that calls for full orchestra forces. I heard all of that in the CSO’s energetic performance. Writer Henry Miller referred to this work as “a bath of ice, cocaine and rainbows,” and if it wasn’t quite at that level, it was played with audible zest. Every section got to show off, and before the piece concluded, the house lights came up and the audience rose to its feet.
Called back several times, Langrée led the CSO in Leonard Bernstein’s raucous overture to Candide. In a moving tribute, when Langrée gestured for the orchestra to stand, they stayed seated, allowing him to take a solo bow.
I wish the CSO had brought out all the workers and designers for a round of applause. It would have been a well-deserved acknowledgement of the many people who helped to make Music Hall’s renovation finish on schedule and look and sound so good.
This article appears in Oct 4-11, 2017.
