Lesbian & Gay Band Triumphs in Rachmaninoff, Jenkins, Smith & Tchaikovsky

Syndicated from: QOnStage.com, New York's Performance and Arts Reviews site at http://www.qonstage.com/QOnStage_articles/2010bac_554Gelbert/art_tpl_w-5...

Soloist, James Adler

Bruce-Michael Gelbert. Posted April 27, 2010

The Lesbian & Gay Big Apple Corps (LGBAC) Symphonic Band's spring concert, under Artistic Director Brian P. Worsdale's baton, on April 24 at the Julia Richman Complex, on the Upper East Side, was entitled "Symphonic Power: a Dynamic Evening of Music," and dynamic it was indeed. The focus was on four pieces, two lengthy ones, bracketed by two overtures, rather than on various shorter pieces, intended to demonstrate the musicians' accomplishments in a diversity of styles. The latter sort of concert works well for the Corps, but this kind worked, too.

The long piece in the first half was Sergey Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra Number 2 in C minor, opus 18, in a band transcription by LGBAC flutist Scott Oaks, with Oaks' partner, composer, pianist and teacher James Adler, as guest soloist.

Although the piano was situated in front of the Corps and Worsdale, the constant communication between conductor and pianist was evident, and the cooperation between them, to make the best music possible, made the performance a success.

Adler started the work with resounding chords that Rachmaninoff, at the keyboard for the premiere, wrote for himself to play, to open the often melancholy and certainly Romantic moderato first movement, played with intensity by Adler and the Corps. In the reflective, nocturne-like adagio sostenuto second movement, Adler's piano part ascended slowly, several times, to exultant climaxes, before he tackled a complex cadenza, and he and the band moved on to the movement's triumphant continuation, with the music then ebbing away. In the concerto's allegro scherzando finale, the rapid beginning, with ornate passagework for the piano, gave way to an expansive statement of the second theme-from which the 1940s pop song "Full Moon and Empty Arms" was derived-this theme introduced by the Corps and then taken up by Adler, when first played and then repeated, before both band and soloist, with virtuosity, embroidered intricately upon it. Pianists have called Concerto Number 2 most daunting for the soloist and Adler offered a bravura account of it.

Preceding the concerto was Pennsylvania-born composer Joseph Willcox Jenkins' "American Overture for Band," at once rollicking and martial in tone, originally written for the United States Army Field Band. How apt it is, in this era of efforts to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell, that a lesbian and gay band should appropriate a military band piece.

The other large-scale opus on the program was another contemporary American composer, Alabama native Robert W. Smith's Symphony Number 1 for symphonic band, "The Divine Comedy," inspired by Dante Alighieri's 14th century "La Divina Commedia." In the first movements, "The Inferno" and "Purgatorio," LGBAC evoked the gloom and turmoil of Hell, including the heavy tread of a chain gang, with Corps members stamping their feet and a percussionist striking the stage floor with a length of chain, and the clangor of parts of Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana." When they weren't playing or stomping, the musicians also gave voice to murmured chants of the damned and cries of "Gloria," before granting us redemption, in "The Ascension" and "Paradiso" movements, and favoring us with a musically Technicolor® vision of a brilliantly glittering Paradise. This work and the next demanded, and got, virtuoso performances from the percussion, among others.

The final work of the evening was repertory standard, or "warhorse," as Worsdale put it, gay ancestor Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture," opus 49, a proud statement of Russian patriotism, recalling the defeat of Napoleon's army, forced to retreat by the Muscovites burning their own city and by the harsh Russian winter, which made for a rousing conclusion to LGBAC's endeavor.

The LGBAC Symphonic Band plans two concerts at the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre at Symphony Space, on Broadway at 95th Street, for next season. "Come Follow the Band," on December 4, will feature works by Holst, Corigliano, Mackey, Reineke, and Sousa, and an appearance by Capital Pride Symphonic Band conductor Joseph Bello. "Under the Big Top!" on April 30, 2011 will include Czech composer Julius Fučik's "Thunder and Blazes," and other circus-style music. For the first time, the Corps will offer subscriptions, guaranteeing center front orchestra seating, at $40, for one ticket per concert; $80 for two tickets, plus one bonus ticket, per concert; and $120 for three tickets, plus one bonus ticket, per concert, plus LGBAC tote bag with VIP gifts. Visit http://www.lgbac.org for further information.