First Impressions by Karolina Hopper

Winds Shine in ‘Aeolian Dance’

In opening remarks made by Thomas Wolf at the Fenimore Chamber Orchestra concert of October 14, mention was made that a $25,000.00 matching gift from an anonymous donor had been completely fulfilled. This was greeted by extended applause from the attentive audience and represents a most auspicious time indeed for FCO and for the people of Cooperstown and Otsego County. This means an already beloved orchestra (is it too early to call it an institution?) has fully arrived on the scene. This is a sure sign that FCO is to be financed and encouraged, especially by everyone who loves the performing arts.

Continuing to the task at hand, FCO offered yet another exceedingly beautiful and virtuosic concert by way of the sobriquet “Aeolian Dance.” Aeolian it certainly was! If the ovations at the end of the George Enescu “Decet for Winds in D Major” is any indication, the audience certainly was transported on an Aeolian wind. This is an almost impossibly difficult work to pull off, either in recording or in live performance; Enescu has so many things going on at once that the whole can seem merely dense in sound. On this occasion, each section was thoroughly studied, which brought about the various colors of the individual sections, thus making the whole something to be awed. This is the kind of performance that Enescu must have heard as he composed the work.

Calming things down a little from the Enescu, with the Mozart “Serenade No. 12” we found ourselves on more secure and well-known turf. The work is scored in C minor, definitely a rarity for the composer. The serenade is wrought with a full dramatic contrast, displaying the ease with which the winds made those contrasts between what are aggressive unisons and lyrical passages. Frankly, a triumph of true ensemble playing.

When it comes to Saint-Saëns, one wonders at the appropriateness of programming the Bacchanale from “Samson et Dalila,” i.e. adoration of the Pagan god Dagon, in a house of God. Not to worry, even our deities, and perhaps Samson himself, could only be astonished by the virtuosity laid before them. Enough said.

It is useless at this juncture to speak of the stupefying virtuosity of the wind section of Fenimore Chamber Orchestra; from the melting clarinet legato in the Mozart to the sensational and extreme demands of a transcription of the Bacchanale from Saint-Saëns’ “Samson et Dalila,” this orchestra continues to display every demand put forth—from gleaming, legato tone to dazzling, florid display. Again, this is the result of the person at the conductors’ podium, Maestro Maciej Żołtowski, who continues to reveal his abilities in conjuring and building the very best from his orchestra. Aeolian winds had completely enveloped this appreciative audience!