The first Masterworks concert of the Quad City Symphony's 99th season was a checkerboard of strengths and weaknesses. Huge, transcendent moments filled the Adler Theatre in the October 5 concert, but when things got quiet, discrepancies in tone color, balance, and rhythm appeared.
Under the direction of Music Director and Conductor Mark Russell Smith, the orchestra explored four diverse approaches to composition in reverse chronological order. Commissioned by the Quad City Symphony, the world premiere of American composer Michael Torke's Oracle opened the program, followed by fellow countryman Aaron Jay Kernis' Musica Celestis, featuring only the strings. The mid-20th Century's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, by British composer Benjamin Britten - with humorous narration by local media personality Don Wooten - completed the first half. After intermission, pianist Jonathan Biss joined the orchestra for Johannes Brahms' Concerto for Piano No. 1.
The concert was an elegantly designed program that included a variety of contemporary works balanced by a classic masterpiece, but - except for Torke - it was not a good selection of music for this orchestra. In the tutti sections, when all the instruments were played, the mixture of timbre was profuse. Yet as the scoring broke down into smaller instrumental combinations, the differences in individual colors became more problematic. The result was tonal incompatibility both among the same instruments and between instrumental families.
