BSO concert conducted by Gittleman is whopping success

The search for a new music director continued Sunday with the Bangor Symphony Orchestra’s second concert of the season, this time featuring Neal Gittleman of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. The event was sold-out, which is the first time a BSO classical concert has done so at the Maine Center for the Arts.

No matter what the reason, however, the concert was a whopping success. In addition to a program of highly expressive music, the concert was punctuated with Gittleman’s brief and friendly addresses before each work. In good humor, he offered interesting notes about the music presented.

The program began with John Adams’ fascinating and rollicking score “The Chairman Dances,” which was originally intended for Adams’ opera “Nixon in China” but was finally relegated to an orchestral work. An amusing combination of skewered foxtrot rhythms and vernacular music, “Chairman” pulsed and swayed with a lush funkiness. Richard Pasvogel on piano and the whole percussion section threw themselves into the antics of this score, and the strings wound out that old Hollywood sound for this exciting contemporary work. Even Gittleman seemed a bit gleeful, nearly dancing to the wildly fun beats.

The orchestra stayed tuned to a fine state of wit and character for Richard Strauss’s tone poem “Death and Transfiguration.” Gittleman read in full the Alexander Ritter poem which was written to accompany this symphonic work, and thus gave the audience the complete images Strauss intended to go along with the music.

Despite the distraction of violinist Robert Enman leaving the stage to repair a broken finger board and then returning a few minutes later, the performance was one of grandeur and subtle dynamics. There was no mistaking the electrifyingly intense struggle against death with the opulence of transfiguration. The concert hall absolutely boomed with volume and then calmed to a dignified sweetness, which Gittleman controlled expertly.

The moment that everyone seemed to be waiting for was, of course, the performance of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, which began with an admirable breakneck speed and clarity. As with the performances of the other pieces on the program, this segment lacked a determined brass sound but was generally handled with a refreshing pointedness.

Although this symphony is often described in profoundly serious terms, Gittleman managed to accentuate both the hushed mystery and the wily humor of the music. He infused the andante con molto with splendid regalness and swept through the allegros with a tough and urgent incisiveness. He even merited applauses between movements — a major no-no among seasoned concertgoers. But Gittleman was gracious enough to nod his head in appreciation. The concert is about music, after all, and to “err” on the side of enthusiasm seemed perfectly acceptable to him.