Long Beach, California / Enero 2009

Tchaikovsky soars to new heights under concertmaster Roger Wilkie

By John Farrell, Special to the Press-Telegram
Posted: 02/02/2009 05:27:24 PM PST

All orchestras have personalities, and, over time, those personalities become easily recognizable, like an old friend's face.

The Long Beach Symphony Orchestra, in the middle of its eighth year under the baton of Music Director Enrique Arturo Diemecke, has such a personality.

There's a sense of family, with a core group of musicians who have played together for years and have become the kind of supportive musical team for which conductors and audiences always hope.

There's a sense of power, as well, for Diemecke has never shied away from the big orchestral sound and its challenges, and the symphony has learned to provide sheer power - elegant power, shimmering power - with the same easy agility a baseball slugger uses to drive a fastball over the wall.

Both the power and the family connection were on display Saturday at the Terrace Theater of the Long Beach Performing Arts Center, as Diemecke led his band through an evening of the powerful orchestral delights of three big pieces of music by Tchaikovsky, that late 19th-century master of orchestral passion and instrumental grace.

The family connection was most apparent in the brilliant Violin Concerto, with the orchestra's long-time concertmaster, Roger Wilkie, as soloist.

Diemecke has long made a point of showcasing orchestra principles as soloists, and this wasn't Wilkie's first time in front of the orchestra. It may well have been his best, though. It is hard to remember a performance of this popular concerto, or many others equally as well-known, delivered with such confidence and power and physical presence.
From the start, with his introduction of the moving primary theme of the concerto, it was clear Wilkie's violin was going to rule the performance. His instrument has a powerful, dominant voice that was always strong against even the most powerful orchestral passages, always crisp and bursting with energy.

Equally important was Wilkie's relaxed, almost playful approach to the work. He clearly felt confident in his musical family's support, and in Diemecke's cooperation, and there were moments when he seemed almost casual about rests, plucked notes and passages full of high-speed fingerings and double stops.

It was exhilarating to watch him, sometimes serious, sometimes playful.

His reading of the solo first-movement cadenza was a lengthy moment of bravura technique, surpassing lyricism and deep emotion. Diemecke asks that his audiences not applaud between movements of a work, and they usually respect his wishes, but this first movement provoked applause so lengthy Diemecke had to gesture for quiet before the work continued to its brilliant finish.

The evening opened with the dark-colored tone poem "Francesca da Rimini," a work that calls for a big orchestra and a huge sound, violent and even a bit frightening as Tchaikovsky tells the story of a woman condemned to hell in Dante's "Inferno" for making love to her husband's brother.

An imaginative listener might hear a little autobiography in the work and can't miss the laments of those in the swirling smokes and mist of one of the lowest rings of hell.

Diemecke calls this one of his favorite works, and he led it with precise detail and perfect control.

The evening ended with the composer's "Little Russia" symphony, his second, a work inspired by the Ukraine, known as "Little Russia" then, and filled with tunes that are drawn from or inspired by folk music.

Though the work was written early in his career, it still has all the hallmarks of Tchaikovsky's orchestral writing: brilliant brass passages, shimmering effects in the woodwinds, a rich use of the strings and plenty of powerful but carefully used percussion.

Principal French Horn Joseph Meyer played the daunting and exposed open horn passages with perfection, and the dance-filled third movement was a delight of rhythmic energy.

John Farrell is a Long Beach freelance writer. More of his articles can be read at http://byjohnfarrell.typepad.com.

Críticas de Long Beach, California (enero 2009)

LBSO Leaves No Room For Criticism

By Jim Ruggirello
Downtown Gazette ~ Grunion Gazette

This is getting boring.

The Long Beach Symphony is playing at such a high level these days, and Saturday's all-Tchaikovsky program at the Terrace Theater exhibited such a really astonishing quality of execution, that they leave us critics with very little to criticize. I hate it when that happens.

Tchaikovsky writes for, and demands, a truly virtuoso ensemble. The expression is heightened in intensity, so there is nowhere to hide. His counterpoint is surprisingly intricate, so technique must be spot-on. And throughout all of his works, the composer, like the audience, requires a consistently beautiful sound.

Music director Enrique Arturo Diemecke understands all that, and fortunately our local band is more than up to the various tasks at hand. From the opening of "Francesca da Rimini" to the closing bars of the Symphony No. 2, the LBSO winds and brass created some amazing tonal colors, the strings were really magnificent and the percussion did their usual exemplary (and underappreciated) work.

Diemecke's ability to achieve perfect balance and transparent textures was everywhere in evidence. Striking solo contributions came from Gary Bovyer (clarinet, inexplicably denied a solo bow for "Francesca"), English horn Joan Elardo, flute Heather Clark and horn Joseph Meyer. The entire evening was a display of orchestral playing at its best.

Speaking of soloists, LBSO concertmaster Roger Wilkie played the violin concerto between the tone poem and the symphony, and demonstrated once again why we are so lucky to have him. His sound was huge, filling the cavernous auditorium with ease, and gorgeous. The concerto's well-known technical challenges seemingly presented no challenge at all, and the entire performance was simply wonderful, the equal of many with more celebrated names. Meanwhile, Agnes Gottschewski filled in capably as the violins' leader.

I'm reduced to criticizing Tchaikovsky, since the poor man isn't around to defend himself. "Francesca da Rimini" is very long, and I had trouble hearing any memorable tunes, which made it seem even longer. The piece is certainly dramatic enough, especially in its depiction of the whirlwind that traps the unfortunate lovers in Dante's story, but I suspect most of the audience would rather have been listening to "Romeo and Juliet," which has lots of great tunes and is shorter.

And it's easy to see why No. 2 isn't as well known as the last three symphonies. It begins well enough, with a nicely constructed first movement, but then we get this inane little march, an undistinguished scherzo, and a finale that degenerates towards the end into noisy, over-the-top bombast. For some reason, the finale's momentum is halted in mid-onrush by a gong. A gong? Where the heck did that come from?

Diemecke conducted, and the orchestra played, as if everything was a masterpiece. Indeed, Tchaikovsky was a great composer, even if, except for the violin concerto, these works are not his greatest, and the LBSO continues to demonstrate its development as a great orchestra. Enrique Arturo Diemecke is a great conductor and orchestra builder. Isn't that great?

Empezando el año con Mahler: como debe ser

Flint Symphony Orchestra elevates the drama with Gustav Mahler's Fifth

Posted by Laurence E. MacDonald | Contributing writer January 19, 2009 21:48PM

Ever since Leonard Bernstein launched a pioneering series of concerts featuring the symphonies of Gustav Mahler in the early 1960s, almost every major conductor has become a Mahler devotee. But few have approached Mahler's music with the sheer passion that has been the trademark of Flint Symphony music director Enrique Diemecke. The latest demonstration of Diemecke's devotion took place Saturday as the FSO performed a splendidly dramatic rendition of Mahler's Fifth Symphony.

The drama was displayed early on with the opening trumpet fanfare, which was just one of many moments featuring the golden tones of trumpeter Mark Flegg.

The first movement's subsequent funeral march theme, which included outstanding playing by the FSO strings, hinted further at a descriptive content regarding an unnamed person's death, subsequent burial, and ultimate rebirth. Although Mahler himself denied any descriptive ideas for this work, Diemecke's explanation gave the audience a thought-provoking way of handling this symphony's excessive length, which added up to far more than an hour.

In the second of the work's five movements, a rambunctious beginning theme, with exciting playing by the woodwinds, was followed by a somber theme that was beautifully rendered by the FSO's cellos.

The third movement, which Mahler called a "scherzo," was not only the longest of the five, but also one of the most beautifully played, with outstanding work by the French horns, under the sturdy leadership of Carrie Banfield-Taplin. The multiple layers of Mahler's music were superbly controlled by Diemecke, who used neither a baton nor printed score

The best-known part of this symphony is the slow Adagietto, the long-held notes of which were lyrically played by the FSO strings, led by principal violinist Andrew Jennings. A delicate harp accompaniment featured lovely playing by FSO's harpist Amy Ley. This gem of a movement proved to be a sublime highlight of the evening.

The Rondo-Finale, while not as musically inspired as the Adagietto, brought the symphony to a triumphant ending, with a final theme that featured outstanding work by the entire brass section. If by the end of the work the brass playing became a bit faulty at times, chalk that up to the sheer volume of work demanded of them. The overall dramatic impact of the Mahler Fifth was still intact. Indeed, the FSO has seldom performed with such magnificent flair.

The only other work on Saturday's program, Saint-Saens' Piano Concerto No. 5, featured wonderfully supple playing by guest pianist Lilya Zilberstein. Although she kept racing ahead of the orchestra early in the first movement, for most of the work's length there was a gorgeous sense of ensemble. After the nimble-fingered opening movement, Zilberstein offered a lyrical second movement, the exotic melodies of which have resulted in this work being known as the "Egyptian Concerto."

The fast-paced finale, with rippling keyboard scales and arpeggios, brought this regrettably little-known work to a flashy finish. The standing ovation Zilberstein received was most richly deserved.

© 2009 Michigan Live. All Rights Reserved.

"La filarmónica, en una realidad paralela", La Nación, diciembre 2008

Casi escindida de lo que sucedía a su alrededor, la Filarmónica de Buenos Aires cumplió con su ciclo de presentaciones con puntualidad y respeto, no sólo por sus abonados sino por los artistas que la integran y los que la acompañan ocasionalmente. Así, además de la gran actuación que tuvo la orquesta, sobre todo cuando la batuta estaba en manos de su titular, Arturo Diemecke (foto), hay que agradecer los valiosos invitados que acercó a los melómanos locales.
(Foto: Juan Parra)

De La Nación, 28 de diciembre 2008

"...salvo la Orquesta Filarmónica que cumplió casi a pie juntillas su ciclo, a lo largo de este año, el Colón canceló más funciones que las que pudo concretar. Así, es casi milagroso afirmar que, efectivamente, la Filarmónica tuvo un gran año y que encontró en Arturo Diemecke, a su gran conductor...."
Alejandro Cruz / Verónica Pagés