BSO presents an afternoon of contrasts

ORONO- Despite the day being probably the finest that the Bangor area has seen this spring, and despite the lack of guest soloists or guest conductors on the program, seats were well filled for Sunday afternoon’s concert by the Bangor Symphony Orchestra at the Maine Center for the Arts.

Most of the members of the audience were aware that maestro Christopher Zimmerman, the orchestra’s director the past seven years, was leaving to accept a position near Houston. So perhaps the welcoming applause for Zimmerman was a little warmer than usual.

He pointed out that the afternoon’s program could be subtitled “Contrasts and Connections.”

“The contrasts are perhaps evident,” Zimmerman said from the stage. “The two Haydn pieces, being commissioned works designed to deliver a certain type of piece showing his wit, his craft and his ingenuity. The other two pieces were written for private reasons. Neither was commissioned. These were pieces the composers had to write.”

The connections were less evident, Zimmerman pointed out.

The first of the pair of Haydn pieces, the Symphony No. 6, began with a quiet movement in which the orchestra first seemed a bit tentative. They soon found some of the precision and lightness this music requires. Also known as “The Morning Symphony,” its delicate ornamentation from flute and woodwinds truly evoked a quiet scene. Throughout the piece the wind section, as usual, sounded marvelous, singly and together, with well-balanced sound. I would like to see this group of fine musicians perform as a stand-alone ensemble.

Concertmaster Lynn Brubaker sounded sweet in the second movement and robustly energetic in the final movement. Kudos as well to bassoonist Kenneth Mumme, whose instrument’s voice in the third movement brimmed with lively good humor.

After applause and acknowledgements of the soloists, Zimmerman returned to the microphone. He explained that the next piece, the “Grosse Fuge” of Ludwig von Beethoven, originally was the last movement of a string symphony, the Opus 130. Said Zimmerman: “It’s a thorny, difficult piece, relentless but beautiful. A lot of the beauty here comes from the honesty of this music.”

The Great Fugue was performed by the strings in an expanded arrangement of the original quartet. The music, as might be expected, is fugal in nature, with various sections and musicians taking the themes and tossing them back and forth within the orchestra.

This piece, however, never entirely came together with any force. The relationships between the fugal elements seemed too abstract and nonemotional for what should be an emotionally intense work. It also was marred by intonation problems, mostly within the viola section.

About the third piece on the program, the “Chamber Symphony” of Dmitri Shostakovich, Zimmerman said, “This is not a happy piece! Shostakovich had gone to Dresden to write some film music. He was struck by the devastation of what had been a most beautiful city, and he wrote this piece in two days on a train. While he dedicated it to the victims of fascism and war, this work was also about his recent commitment to the Communist Party, something he had not wanted to do.”

The orchestra played this piece superbly. From the slurred, slippery opening notes through mournful gypsylike melodies; from strident music reminiscent of scenes of terror in Hitchcock movies to a macabre and mocking waltz evoking mad ghosts of German society before the war, each section throbbed with feeling.

The orchestrated version of the String Quartet No. 8 retained many of the solo voicing from the original quartet. This added to the emotional impact, particularly when the orchestra emitted a series of strong rhythmic bursts over a long sustained note from a solo violin.

The piece ended, slowly, with such exquisite sadness that the audience was caught at the moment of silence at the end of the piece, applauding only after taking a moment to savor the fading sorrow.

The final Haydn piece, the Symphony No. 102, written more than 30 years after the first Haydn piece on the program, indeed connected to the sound of early Beethoven works and was not unpleasant to listen to.

But this piece lacked even the clarity and buoyancy of the earlier Haydn symphony. The horns and woodwinds sounded quite good, adding punch to an otherwise nice but uninspiring performance of the piece.