Lasting Impressions by Karolina Hopper
Puttin’ on the Ritz with FCO
Fenimore Chamber Orchestra played its second concert of the season on October 5 at Christ Church in Cooperstown. The orchestra tipped its top hat to the great compositional school of America, a school that is primarily ignored not only here at home but abroad. This amounted to truly inspired concert programming. The concert opened with four arrangements by William Zinn of four famous songs of Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington. Ellington produced not only his great jazz compositions, but wrote operas, ballets, symphonies, art songs, you name it; and all this in addition to more than 4,000 performances in his lifetime! He has simply got to be the greatest musician America ever produced! The four songs chosen, especially the famous “Take the A Train,” produced a lilt and care for which this orchestra is famous. The orchestra as well as the audience were rocking away.
Victor Herbert’s famous “Serenade for Strings” concluded the first half of the concert. This is a glorious, if not novel, work of art that at one time filled the major concert halls of the U.S. and abroad. One has to ask why the work has fallen into quasi-oblivion. The work is not only a melodic gem, but a compositional gem as well; it smacks of Dvořàk, or was Dvořàk greatly influenced by Herbert? Again, the orchestra produced gorgeous, evenly-balanced tone while differentiating each of the five movements dynamically and texturally as well as responding easily to the harmonies that at this late date still feel modern! A triumph if ever there was one. The audience responded with a lengthy ovation that asked the orchestra to stand three times!
Ralph Vaughan Williams’ delicious and ever popular “Five Variants of ‘Dives and Lazarus’” opened the second half. You may ask, what could an Englishman’s compositions have to do with America? Well, the piece was commissioned by the British Council for inclusion in the 1939 New York World’s Fair. This is a somewhat ambiguous work made up of “variants” rather than variations. From the soft opening, through all the themes, the orchestra easily responded to the otherworldly feel of the work.
The concert ended with arrangements of six spirituals by Morton Gould, who produced more superb music that has fallen to the wayside. The fact that our orchestra can respond to the completely differing demands of each of these glorious works is a tribute not only to the artists in the orchestra themselves but to the sure and guiding hand of Maestro Żoltowski. The audience responded with a loud and prolonged ovation. Let us hope they keep “tipping” their top hats!
Karolina Hopper is a freelance contributor.