Bay-Atlantic Symphony, Jed Gaylin (conductor)
Amy Beth Horman (violin)
“Classic Contours.” Concert
Barber: Violin Concerto, op. 14
(Vocal Barber Violin Concerto)
[All] of Mozart’s “Prague.”
Saint-Saëns: Havanaise, op. 83
Mozart: Symphony no. 38 in D major, K. 504 (“Prague”)
Guaracini Arts Center, Cumberland County College, Vineland
There were two unusual points, both quite telling, about the Bay-Atlantic Symphony’s
weekend series.
First was violin soloist Amy Beth Horman’s subtle yet affecting articulation in Samuel Barber’s
masterwork Violin Concerto. One can hear so well that Barber, like Mozart, can be described
as a “vocal” composer even when not writing for singers. So when I say that in the first two
movements her big sound “sang,” I mean it not in the usual generic meaning of that term
when describing an instrumental sound.
Instead, she contrived to play the long lyric passages with a portamento which was noticeably
like the little slides into pitches and with text-oriented rubatos that singers often use for
expressive purposes. This technique was quite clearly neither sloppiness nor a mindless
mannerism. Rather, it was a device which heightened intensity
particularly well in this work. Perhaps Ms. Horman knew that Samuel Barber was an
excellently trained baritone. Whether she did or not, it was a performance which resonated
with the composer’s own musicianship particularly well.
That the manner of playing was intentional was evidenced in her subsequent performance
of Saint-Saëns’ beloved [Havanaise.] Here, with plenty of opportunity to slip and slide all over
the expressivity map, Horman kept her portamento in check, using instead subtly changing
levels of vibrato to give nuance. The result was a passionate yet elegant performance, which
showed her to be an artist whose evidences of pesonality are produced with intentionality.
The legendary finale of Barber’s concerto, composed to spite the violinist for whom it was
composed when he complained to the composer that the first two movements were too easy
and lyrical, is a blockbuster in the genre of hair-raising perpetual motion. Ms. Horman’s
fingers and bow flew over the strings at a blistering clip. Her intonation was clean,
her high-speed bowing crisp, and her understanding of the long line quite shapely.
By the way, that violinist from 70 years ago couldn’t play the finale and never did perform
the concerto. Since then it has become one of the most played works by an American composer.
The ensemble between conductor Jed Gaylin, the orchestra, and Ms. Horman was excellent,
nowhere more evident than in the matched rubatos in the first two movements on the one
hand and on the other hand the slam-bang finale final chords in which all concerned hit the
mark together.
Among the orchestral solos, clarinetists Christopher and Karen Di Santo’s way with the second
theme in the first movement was exquisite.
In the second movement oboist Corinna Wiedmer-Symer’s long solo matched Horman’s for
shaping a long singing line.
The second unusual thing in the concert was a performance of Mozart’s complete three-movement
“Prague” Symphony. No, no one has discovered a fourth movement. What made it different from
usual was that Mr. Gaylin played it with every repeat indicated by Mozart observed. This is rarely
done in our age, when through recordings we are likely to already know the piece and don’t need
it to be fed to us multiple times like Mozart’s audience did. Playing all the repeats reveals the work to
be the longest symphony composed to that time by anyone — well over half-hour — though Mozart
himself was to eclipse its length drastically in his final “Jupiter” symphony. Do all the repeats in that
one and discover that no symphony will be longer until Beethoven’s “Eroica.”
Added length is not always a good idea to keep the audience’s attention in our jaded times.
But on this occasion Mr. Gaylin drew exceptionally stylish Mozartean playing from his forces.
Rather than the long middle movement becoming the heavy-handed bore it too often is even
without the repeats, Gaylin developed a light lyric expression which floated over the anchoring
bass line. Phrasing from all the winds was just right, never overblown into a too-wide scope, nor
underplayed into a shapeless flat line. When the unexpected repeats came, it was a pleasure to
hear such stylish elegance a second time.
The finale sparkled along airily, but not without substance. Big moments were well within the
bounds of classical restraint but were impressive with razor sharp attacks. The “out of synch” canons
came across as funny and clever instead of heavy-handedly academic. All in all, it was the finest
Mozart I have heard yet from the Bay-Atlantic Symphony, and I’ve heard some very fine Mozart from
them in the past.
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