QUIRKY WORKS FOR ENSEMBLE
By Tom Strini

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Oct 13 2005

Moscow Chamber Orchestra Full Of Surprise Moments
Journal Sentinel music critic

Intriguing oddities carried the day for the Moscow Chamber Orchestra
at Wisconsin Lutheran College on Wednesday.

Arrangements of Five Armenian Dances (collected by the folklorist
Komitas and arranged by Sergei Aslamazian); Karl Davidov’s “At
the Fountain”; Prokofiev’s “Visions Fugitives”; and Rachmaninoff’s
“Vocalise” won’t show up on another program any time soon.

The Armenian music chants or dances in exotic modes. The arranger
gussied them up with ostinatos but retained their primal feel.

“Garun’a,” with its exquisite melody in the violins and a distant
countermelody buzzing in the cellos, is especially engaging.

Principal cellist Alexander Zagorinsky was the soloist in a meditative
take on Rachmaninoff’s “Vocalise” and in the Davidov showpiece. “At
the Fountain” is a colorful little etude meant to show off and develop
cello tremolo. It’s fun.

“Visions Fugitives” flit by like hummingbirds – splashes of color here
and gone so quickly you wonder if you imagined them. The MCO’s founding
conductor, Rudolf Barshai, arranged the 1917 piano original for his
orchestra. Under current leader Constantine Orbelian, the MCO plays
them with an unerring feel for their quirky gestures and vivid timbres.

I remembered the Moscow ensemble as nearly perfect, technically, in
their 2000 visit to Wisconsin Lutheran’s Schwan Concert Hall. This
time around, quite a few bouts of fuzzy ensemble and intonation
crept in, especially in the more conventional repertoire. They had
the most technical trouble, oddly enough, in Mozart’s Serenade No. 6
(“Notturna”), and they never managed the easy grace that is the whole
point of this piece.

At the other end of the emotional spectrum, they didn’t get the
desperation that is the essence of Astor Piazzolla’s music. Readings
of three of his tangos were more English tea dance than Buenos Aires
tango club.

Ripsime Airepetyants and Irina Krasko took the solo parts in Bach’s
Concerto in D minor for Two Violins (BWV 1043). They and the orchestra
played Bach the old-fashioned way – not spartanly Baroque in the
early-music movement way, but buttery and Romantic in the circa 1950
way. The slow movement sounded like Puccini. I didn’t mind that so
much as the muddy counterpoint in the finale.

The first encore, a dolorous Russian folksong, was profound.

Violinist Alexander Mayorov opened the second with a cadenza that
sounded like Sarasate. Everyone laughed when it turned out to be
“Yankee Doodle” in a completely nutty virtuoso setting. It was an
apt ending for a slightly nutty program.