Beginning a fresh season… and name.
The Oakland East Bay Symphony, newly renamed as the Oakland Symphony (which is what everyone already called them), opened their season at the Paramount with a mix of new and old, waltzy and wistful.
Michael Morgan, a conductor with a long history of adventurous programming, spoke about his season choices. “Beethoven sells tickets and Brahms is amazing. But there are only four Brahms symphonies! So this year we are going to explore lesser-known works that really deserve to be heard. We are calling this series ‘Lost Romantic Symphonies.’”
He took the podium for a brand new work by Mason Bates, Devil’s Radio, titled after a Southern description of rumor. Equal parts high swirls and low thrums, this work bent the ear towards a genial self-absorption.
Bates alternated high piquant textures with bass rumbles, slowly transitioning his rhythms into a bluesy sort of jazz. There was a lovely solo by principal second violinist Liana Bérubé, bouts of brass flash, and an ending that mirrored the beginning with high sparkles. But despite elements of intrigue, the middle registers felt thin, better reflecting the rational world than the emotional one.
Shifting to romantic (and steering us into a season of “lost romantic”), young violin sensation Kenneth Renshaw next delivered a solid rendition of Sergei Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in G Minor. This is a piece that is equal parts lullaby and difficult articulation, and it is a tough act to keep it urgent. It began with a violin solo, which Renshaw made intimate even in the expanses of the Paramount. Prokofiev turned his folk-imbued themes wintry and even a little desolate, then followed with a shivery echo from the basses.
Renshaw progressed smoothly from slow evocations into huge runs, all balanced by short bass strokes, just slightly tongue-in-cheek. His sound was full and even-handed even in the most difficult runs, and all tinctured with Prokofiev’s provocative scales. It was bracing and a little bitter, like the winds off Lake Neva, and more sophisticated but less fierce than his first violin concerto, which he wrote 20 years earlier.
The other high point of the evening was a first class performance of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances. This is more accurately a concerto for orchestra, a grand showpiece for each element of the orchestra, and extras were packed in to swell the numbers of the Oakland Symphony. Morgan went all out, and the orchestra grabbed us in its first bars, the direct opposite of the temperate Bates or restrained Prokofiev. They gave us a meaty sound, with all parts meshing like one informed mind.
Of particular note were the many passages for winds, with lots of lovely solo work by oboist Andrea Plesnarski, and great flute and clarinet contributions from Alice Lenaghan and Diane Maltester respectively. After those sweet textures they were joined by strings for a sojourn that was unabashedly romantic.
And then Rachmaninoff builds to thunder!
Hot spots included lots of piano support by Ellen Wasserman and a solo by new concertmaster Basma Edrees, whose low notes were earthy and heartfelt.
The other satisfying part of the program was a salute to Lynne Morrow, who has led the Oakland Symphony Chorus for the last ten years. She took the podium after intermission to conduct seven short selections from Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzes for orchestra and full chorus. It is a real job for 80 singers to be intelligible in German, but this chorus made it easy with tight entrances and careful diction. The altos showed a smooth lilt and muscularity in “Wie des abends,” and the ensemble was silken and full in “Wenn so lind dein Auge mir.”
And in “Am Donaustrande,” the tenors and altos melted together like the coolness of evening, with basses storming in with admirable heft.
Well done, Lynne Morrow!
—Adam Broner
Photo top of violinist Kenneth Renshaw, photo courtesy of the Oakland Symphony; below, of conductor Michael Morgan, photo by Eric Politzer; and bottom, of conductor Lynne Morrow, photo by Marco Sanchez.