Those ‘Other,’ Less Glamorous American Orchestras

Financial problems aside, there is much artistic life to be found among American orchestras with less glamorous reputations than the Big Orchestras of, say New York, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia and Los Angeles.

Consider the Detroit Symphony, which has experienced--and pulled through--its death throes. On present recorded evidence, the orchestra is playing with particular enthusiasm for its new music director, the prolific, much-traveled Neeme Jarvi.

Their latest joint endeavor is, in part, a model of unhackneyed, catalogue-enhancing repertory: 1930s works by the hardly inconsequential French composer Albert Roussel (1869-1937), his Third Symphony and the Suite No. 2 from the “Bacchus et Ariane” ballet (Chandos 8996).

The Symphony is one of those driving, faintly Stravinskian neoclassical works in which a large orchestra is broken down into chamber-ensemble components (and scored with chamberlike clarity) when not using its total resources to create a brave noise. The two final movements are particularly convincing here for the alert, pointed playing, solo and mass, of the Detroiters under Jarvi’s quicksilver direction.

“Bacchus et Ariane” is a more lush and sexy affair, whose concluding Bacchanale is catnip to the darkly resplendent Detroit brass. But why couple these scores with the umptieth (it’s no longer umpteenth) CD versions of “Bolero” and “La Valse” by Roussel’s contemporary, Ravel?

Nor do we need another Stravinsky “Sacre du Printemps,” an opinion obviously not shared by conductor Eduard Mata and his Dallas Symphony, who could do much to enlarge the tiny recorded catalogue of Latin American music. They add their professional polish but nothing newsworthy to a bloated list. The coupling is the not-quite-overexposed, but hardly rare, “Scythian Suite” of Prokofiev (Dorian 90156).

A new release from the Cincinnati Symphony under Jesus Lopez-Cobos is devoted to non-symphonic Mahler: his “Kindertotenlieder,” “Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen” and “Ruckert Lieder” (Telarc 80269). The aim here isn’t to knock socks off but to impress with subtlety of projection. The Cincinnatians’ balanced, light string choirs, its horns and caressing solo woodwinds, prove to be quietly expert.

The nominal star of this concert is the young German baritone Andreas Schmidt, who is in the process of discarding his Fischer-Dieskau mannerisms to show his true self, the possessor of an evenly produced, expressive instrument of both heft and sensual appeal, qualities maximized by the sympathetic support given here.

In a similar vein, the Indianapolis Symphony and conductor Raymond Leppard have fashioned a program designed to exhibit such supposedly un-American qualities (among symphony orchestras, at any rate) as dynamic sensitivity and sweetness of string tone.

They succeed admirably in a program of music by Elgar on themes of childhood, including “The Wand of Youth” and “Nursery Suite,” both highlighting the orchestra’s outstanding flute and clarinet soloists (Koss 1014). “Starlight Express” and the achingly lovely “Dream Children” are delivered with exquisite lightness by the clarinets and upper strings.

Conductor Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony’s ongoing affair with the modern American symphony achieves a peak of revelation with the superbly wrought Fourth Symphony (1951) of Walter Piston (Delos 3106).

Schwarz and his players are alert to every tricky rhythmic twist of the dancing second movement and the wonderfully blasty finale. Terrific music, otherwise unavailable on recordings, and part of an attractive disc that also includes Piston’s Capriccio for Harp, the Serenata and “New England Sketches.”

Finally, a curiously contrived program of low-key Copland, suites from “The Tender Land” and “The Red Pony,” both requiring top-line efforts to make an effect, and the “Three Latin-American Sketches,” virtually guaranteed to make no effect under any circumstances.

The orchestra is the Phoenix Symphony, which would seem to be a highly accomplished ensemble in need of more rhythmically taut, incisive leadership than is here provided by conductor James Sedares (Koch 7092).