Brahms fails to lull attentive audience to sleep

Composer captivates Finney audience under the direction of talented students

Conservatory junior Ruo Huang approached the conducting podium in Finney Chapel on Sunday night to the whoops and catcalls of his supportive colleagues. Performed by an orchestra of student volunteers, the concert consummated the Winter Term project of Huang, Conservatory junior Amitabh Rao, and Conservatory senior Ian Shafer, conducting the works of Huang, Brahms, Brahms and more Brahms.

To see all in the same evening one person conduct Brahms's Tragic Overture, Variations on a theme by Haydn and the Double Concerto would have been a sure-fire sedative for most audiences. But the listeners on Sunday remained attentive, for the variety of musicianship between Huang, Shafer and Rao turned the event into a study in interpretation of the great 19th century composer.

Putting together this program was a valuable and educational experience for the student conductors. According to Huang, "The most important things in conducting an orchestra are to have a solid and good relationship with the people you are working with, respecting everyone and learning from each other. Also, choosing a good and interesting piece is important."

Tragic Overture, as conducted by Huang, encompassed an enormous range of affect and emotion. As though he were giving hints to various plot weavings of a drama, Brahms's melodic love themes, noble rhythmic figures, melancholic harmonies and rumbling turmoil, make him Brahms the Storyteller - at least for this work. Huang's sense of this multi-personality never wavered, and while operating with romantic gestures, romantic rubato and sweeping romanitc flexibility, the rhythmic energy remained high throughout.

A large palette of sound and texture was no less paramount in the composing and execution of Huang's own Prelude for Orchestra. Contained in a very short time frame, Prelude was a collage of very disparate gestures, at times growing out of one another. The seemingly organic structure of the piece made it non-narrative.

Ian Shafer took the baton for Variations on a Theme by Haydn, one of Brahms's earlier works. Through a tentative, under-rehearsed performance, one heard a doubly affected composition of the young Brahms. Shafer shifted convincingly between the aristocratic dotted rhythm and the passages of melodic sweep.

Rao articulated the difficulty of completing this project, considering many factors. "It is hard to put together performances like this since most of the people in the orchestra were not playing for credit. It is hard to recruit people to play in fun gigs like this one." Those who did participate gave a generous effort, on the whole, and Huang might attribute it to "people getting together to play the music not because they have to, but love to."

The Double Concerto conducted by Rao, featured violinist Christos Galileas and cellist Christopher Miroshnikov, both seniors in the Conservatory. Many professional performances of this work are similar to stage shows exploiting the soloists' and conductor's mastery (the Tanglewood '96 birthday celebration of Seiji Ozawa, Itzhak Perlman and Yo Yo Ma comes to mind - but there are numerous suitable examples). Galileas, Miroshnikov and Rao gave a refreshingly honest performance, devoid of any Brahms-on-a-German-romantic-laxative effects that the masters, for some reason, can get away with.

Miroshnikov and Galileas shared complimenting musical ideas, and Rao projected a thoughtfulness of the large scheme of the piece. Miroshnikov, in particular, communicated to the audience in a way that should be the goal of any performer of written music: to play as though it were improvised. This feat was all the more impressive, considering it is a staple in the concerto repertoire.