Lasting Impressions by T. Stephen Wager

FCO: An Ideal Realized

One of those glorious late-spring days greeted the return of the Fenimore Chamber Orchestra to Christ Church in Cooperstown for the final concert of the season. To open the program, Cervantes’ errant knight Don Quixote made his presence known via Telemann’s “Burlesque de Quixotte.” In this instance, Telemann has produced his own musical novel. Telemann chooses, however, the errant side of Don Quixote, as an old and crazy man. There was nothing errant about the performance presented by Maestro Maciej Żołtówski, conducting from the harpsichord, and the orchestra. The title of the movements, provided by Telemann himself, were easily evident and, especially in the case of the windmills, given loving and charming nuance.

“Three Mannheim Symphonies” by Johann Stamitz were presented in the second half of the program. Mannheim became famous for having established itself at the time as one of the most important musical and cultural centers of Europe. Likewise, Stamitz, before Haydn, was the most famous composer producing works in the symphonic genre. He became wildly famous because of his musical invention and structural organization. All of this was under the superb and flexible control of Maestro Żołtówski.

The much anticipated highlight of the afternoon came directly before intermission by way of J.S. Bach’s delightful Concerto for Oboe and Violin in C Minor. Principals Randall Ellis, oboe, and Debrah Devine, violin II, transported the audience to a baroque world of musical delights.

Stylistically, the two offered wonderful sensibility as to the musical requirements as well as beautiful and supple tone accompanied by the slightest of tasteful rubato. When playing together, the interweaving of tone could be described as a beautiful vine of summer roses as the perfume, e.g. glorious tone, wafted its way through the concert hall. What can one say when in the presence of two such world-class artists? The audience certainly let its pleasure be known with a particularly lengthy ovation. Their enthusiasm was rewarded by a delicious solo duet from Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.”

Fenimore Chamber Orchestra has, in a very short time, developed into a class of its own. However high the standards have been in the past, it is apparent that Maestro Żołtówski and the artists in his orchestra have striven diligently to enhance further the tone and accuracy of their performances. The poet C.D.F. Schobert in Stamitz’ day opined about the Mannheim Court Orchestra that which could easily be said of Fenimore Chamber Orchestra today: “Listening to the orchestra one believed oneself to be transported to a magic island of sound.” Indeed, indeed!

T. Stephen Wager is a regular contributor to “The Freemans’ Journal” and “Hometown Oneonta.”