Under the leadership of music director David Milnes the UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra has come a long way from a time when attending its concerts was something done as much out of a sense of civic duty as in the expectation of great music-making. And the evidence was surely on display in performances of Rachmaninoff’s daunting Symphonic Dances over the recent Halloween weekend.
The Dances, the composer’s last numbered work, truly comprise a magnum opus, though it was not received as such on its premiere and for many years after – and while it has entered the repertory of every major orchestra, it is still not played as often as his Second Symphony and the popular concertos. It should be, for in this music Rachmaninoff shows off his utter mastery of orchestration.
Indeed, these Symphonic Dances could just as well have been called a Concerto for Orchestra, so impressive and varied are the challenges they present to every section – and section leader – in the orchestra. The UC players met those challenges superbly. Tuning, color, accuracy, balance… everything was in order, and their massed ensemble sound was a special pleasure in the relatively small confines of Hertz Hall.
All of this owes, of course, to the guidance and inspiration of David Milnes, and what he has achieved is more remarkable when one considers that UC orchestra members are not full-time performers or students of performing. They have other jobs or academic pursuits. Which is not to say they are not possessed by music. No other university or conservatory orchestra could have surpassed them in this Rachmaninoff.
Milnes’ conducting of the Symphonic Dances was extraordinary not just for how well he got his orchestra to play. His was a performance brought into being from beginning to end with something like a composer’s measure-for-measure awareness of ongoing tone, detail and expressive purpose. Rachmaninoff, a great conductor, left behind a definitive recording of his Third Symphony but was denied the opportunity to do the same for the Dances. On this occasion it was as if Milnes was standing in for him, so much did he convey that sense of the whole and the climactic point sought by the composer whenever he performed. In the perfectly judged tam-tam fade to silence at the end, the last word on Rachmaninoff’s manuscript came to mind: “Alleluia.”
There was another piece on the program, Prokofiev’s Sinfonia Concertante, in which the orchestra’s co-principal cellist Melody Huang played the formidable solo part. This was her first concerto performance with full orchestra. The music does call for a Russian bear like Rostropovich, for whom it was written, to put across. We should be glad Melody Huang is no such creature. Her sound was not the necessary size, but she played with dedication, integrity, and yes, virtuosity – and on the second night her rapturous involvement in the slow section of the scherzo movement had to have transported her audience as well. Melody Huang is one of those orchestra members who may have to make a difficult choice between music and another field of study. Her listeners wish her well and know she will excel in whichever she chooses… but perhaps selfishly hope she will opt for music.
The UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra next plays at Hertz Hall in December. As if a program including major works by Ligeti and Lutoslawski weren’t an earful, they will also play Strauss’ exhaustively demanding Alpine Symphony, Dec. 11, 12 and 13 at 8:00 p.m.
—Carl Johnson, contributor to Repeat Performances.