Concert Review—

A Concert to Remember, And To Look Forward To

By Wendy Wipprecht

Every holiday season for the past eight years, a group of local classical musicians has helped the town of Newtown be generous to itself. In the week between Christmas and New Year’s, the Concert Society Chamber Orchestra presents a concert to benefit Newtown Youth & Family Services. This season’s concert, the ninth in the series, was presented on Wednesday, December 30, at Trinity Episcopal Church.

This concert was the first to not be directed by Richard E. Serbagi, the chamber orchestra’s conductor for over 25 years. After Mr Serbagi died in November, William Boughton, who is also music director of New Haven Symphony Orchestra, became the chamber orchestra’s new conductor. Of course, the best way to honor the memory of a musician and teacher is to make music, beautifully and joyfully, and that is just what the Concert Society Chamber Orchestra and the soprano soloist Maria Ferrante did.

As a prelude to the concert, and in memory of Mr Serbagi, Ms Ferrante sang Franz Schubert’s An die Musik (To Music) from the choir loft, with organ accompaniment. This song, an emotion-laden ode to music and its power to relieve care and transport us to a better world, has become traditional at recitals, particularly on solemn occasions. The art of singing Lieder is to make these works of intense beauty and subtlety sound as natural and effortless as speech or thought, and Ms Ferrante’s rendition of this familiar work was all that one could wish for.

Then began the concert’s regular program, which Richard Serbagi had designed with a double theme, to celebrate youthful composers (a nod to Newtown Youth & Family Services) and the year 2009. The first composer featured was Felix Mendelssohn, who, like Mozart, was a child prodigy as both a performer and composer. Mendelssohn, who was born in 1809, wrote 12 symphonies for string orchestra that never were assigned opus numbers because they were composed so early and for private performance by the Mendelssohn family and their friends.

The work performed in December, Symphony for Strings No. 10 in B minor, was written when Mendelssohn was only 14 years old. In this brief, three-movement work can be heard echoes of past composers (in some Mozartean phrase endings, for example), some very interesting harmonies that verge upon dissonance, and a sound that is already distinctively Mendelssohn’s own — a forecast, perhaps, of the incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which was written three years later. The orchestra played beautifully, summoning a full, balanced sound as well as speed and lightness that were only enhanced by Trinity Church’s superb acoustics.

Ms Ferrante joined the Concert Society Chamber Orchestra to perform the first of two arias on the program by J.S. Bach, “Liebster Jesu, mein Verlangen (Dearest Jesus, my desiring),” from the cantata of the same name (BWV 32). This beautiful aria for soprano, oboe, strings and continuo sings of the yearning of the soul (soprano) for the presence of Jesus, and the rising lines in oboe and voice combine to create the effect of reaching upward, ending with a feeling of hopeful resolution.

Ms Ferrante and the oboe soloist John Hunalik engaged in a musical conversation, a delicate entwining of voices, that was a joy to hear.

The first half of the concert closed with a familiar work, Mozart’s Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra in B-flat major, K. 191, written when he was only 18. As the bassoonist Wayne Hileman explained in his charming introduction, the bassoon had only recently been developed, but Mozart seems to have loved the instrument: he wrote three bassoon concertos, only one of which survives, and he wrote the bassoon into his symphonies and operas.

Maria Ferrante returning following the evening’s intermission to join members of the chamber orchestra for another Bach aria, “Hört, ihr Augen, auf zu weinen (Eyes, cease thy weeping)” from Cantata BWV 98, Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan (What God does, that is well done). This aria for soprano, oboe obbligato, and continuo contrasts a somewhat somber text with music that has a light, easy, almost dancelike feel. Soprano and oboe joyfully converse, expressing confidence in God’s protection.

The next piece was not on the program, and was added as a tribute to Richard Serbagi. Maria Ferrante sang the beautiful aria “Erbarme dich (Have mercy, Lord)” from Bach’s St Matthew Passion.

Its text is very sad (Have mercy, Lord, because of my tears. Look! My heart and eyes now weep for you bitterly), and the music haunting and plaintive. It expresses the deepest sorrow, and yet is so beautiful that it awakens in the listener — and in the performers too — a feeling of faith and healing.

All three Bach arias were beautifully sung by Ms Ferrante. She met the rigorous technical demands of singing Bach and transcended them, filling the room with inspiring, heartfelt sound. Not only did this performance salute Mr Serbagi’s memory, it proved that his work would long live on after him.

The concert ended with the early and rarely performed Symphony No. 5 in A Major by Franz Joseph Haydn. Haydn was not a child prodigy — his childhood was hard by 18th Century standards, which is to say, horrific by ours — but this symphony was composed relatively early in his career, between the ages of 28 and 30. (Haydn lived a long life, dying famous and beloved at 77 in 1809, the year of Mendelssohn’s birth.)

What is interesting and inspiring about Haydn is his long and fruitful career (for starters, he wrote 106 symphonies), his creativity and openness to new ideas throughout his life (he refined and perfected the classical symphony and is credited as the inventor of the string quartet), and his temperament, which was kindly, sunny, resilient, and, above all, humorous.

This early symphony, scored for two oboes, bassoon, two horns, strings, and continuo, is not as great as the late ones, but it has much to admire. The final movement, Presto, is a spry, energetic movement carried along by athletic bass lines. It brought the concert to an upbeat, invigorating close.

What makes a concert special? One can describe and assess the program of a concert (often as elaborately and elegantly constructed as the menu of a multi-course meal), or the quality of the performers, but there is a third element that is even harder to pin down: that elusive thing called atmosphere or ambiance, which may reflect the occasion, the room in which is takes place, the personality of the performers, the temperament of the audience, and the inherent riskiness (and thrill) of a live performance.

For all these reasons, this annual holiday concert has a wonderful feel: think of it as Newtown’s version of the Vienna Philharmonic’s annual New Year’s Day concert that features waltzes, polkas and marches by the Strauss family, and always ends with Johann Strauss II’s waltz On the Beautiful Blue Danube.

Because the Concert Society Chamber Orchestra’s concert is a benefit, it draws many ordinary citizens, not just the usual musical suspects. A lot of socializing goes on before and after the concert and at intermission. The orchestra designs its program to be user-friendly: the conductor and the instrumental soloists gave witty and informative introductions to the various pieces. The program itself extends the warmth of holiday celebration, mixing sacred and secular offerings but avoiding “holiday music.”

When November and early December 2010 roll around and you start hearing about the 10th annual Newtown Holiday Concert by The Concert Society Chamber Orchestra, write this concert onto your calendar and into your budget. It’s a gift for yourself, for others on your gift list, and, not least, for Newtown Youth & Family Services. As the old year draws to its close, this unique concert will send you out into the night, ready to take on the cold and the challenges of the coming year, with your feet planted firmly in the air.