Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra

Russell Stanger concluded his second season as conductor of the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra with a well-varied and often exciting concert in Sanders Theatre Thursday night. Despite some rough moments, the orchestra gave its best performance of the year. When an amateur symphonic group programs music of professional calibre, there are bound to be egregious flaws. But there were surprisingly few of them Thursday night.

Schubert's Fifth Symphony is not a strikingly original work--its precision and simple, transparent orchestration show the influence of Mozart, but in its broad melodies and sudden modulations it is pure Schubert. The orchestra played it perfectly. I do not believe the string section has ever produced such light, mellow tones.

Gilda Hoffman, Radcliffe '54, was soloist in the Mozart D minor Piano Concerto. Miss Hoffman, who won the position in a contest sponsored by the Pierian Sodality last fall, demonstrated a masterful, florid technique in what seemed to be an effortless performance. Her approach to the concerto was decidedly feminine. Emphasizing the somber, lyrical aspects of the work, her interpretation was a poctic and deeply personal one. Stanger's conducting of this piece showed great improvement over his previous efforts with Mozart. Combining delicacy with dynamism, he gave Miss Hoffman the line orchestral support she deserved.

The transcription of Vivaldi's Concerto Grosso in D minor proved disappointing. I have always felt that an orchestral arrangement of chamber music should utilize the full orchestral sonorities. If the arrangement is merely an attempt to approximate the original sound of the piece, we have a right to ask for the original instrumentation instead. A transcription, I believe, is valid only if it expresses the music in a new way. Thursday's rendition failed because it was little more than a muddy caricature of the real thing. The performance, however, was reasonably good. Stanger's directing lacked excitement because he didn't have much to work with.

The program ended with an exuberant but not always integrated account of Shostakovich's exuberant but not always integrated Ninth Symphony. Stanger, always at his best in modern works, did a marvelous job of bringing out the sophisticated buffoonery of the score, but the orchestra wasn't always up to it. The strings frequently lost track of each other. The brass section, which has been having trouble all year, missed too many notes. However, the percussion and woodwind sections were at their peaks; a few more rehearsals might have made the performance a total success.