I Musici de Montreal, the 15-member string orchestra that closed Tryon Concert Association’s 57th season on March 22 at Tryon Fine Arts Center, played not a single piece composed for string orchestra. I’m as fascinated with arrangements and orchestrations as I am with new works, but this group failed to persuade me that two famous string quartets, one of which was played on this series this season, and a piano piece, best known through its full orchestration by Maurice Ravel, should have formed an entire program.
Janacek’s “String Quartet No. 1” (arranged for string orchestra by Richard Tognetti), Shostakovich’s “Chamber Symphony, Op. 110 bis” (Shostakovich’s own “second version”) and Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” (arranged by Yuli Turovsky, the founding conductor of this group) put me on high alert. All three pieces are filled with passion, tragedy, terror and many small moments of melancholy and introspection that require insight from everyone on stage.
The programming of one Czech and two Russian composers was fine with me, but it proved too challenging for this group in terms of “making the sale.” As a whole, they performed admirably given the restraint evident in players placed in key positions. The concert mistress was a cool, mechanical player who remained cool and uninteresting until the final piece. (Please don’t tell me that pedal points on a muted string must be icy and barely audible.)
The gentleman playing first chair second violin would have been a better choice for all solo work with his warmer, more interesting sound. His shaping and control of single tones breathed life into several exposed passages and would have changed the character of all three pieces had he been concert master. The gifted and competent 24-year-old guest conductor Aziz Shokhakimov wrought numerous gorgeous endings, but ripped through both the Janacek and the Shostakovich as if he were terrified of their secrets.