Holiday Pops show rides highs and lows
-
Daniel Meyer
Share with others:
Former Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra resident conductor Daniel Meyer returned to the city for a Holiday Pops concert at Heinz Hall Thursday night paved with good intentions. But the program didn't provide the smooth "Sleigh Ride" over musical hill and dale that one of the orchestra's opening selections promised.
For my tastes, musical options found off the beaten path are usually the highlight of an evening like this. Not that they didn't have merit. Symphony harpist Gretchen Van Hoesen laid down a glistening landscape in selections from Marcel Samuel-Rousseau's "Variations Pastorales sur un Vieux Noel" and Betsy Burleigh's Mendelssohn Choir hovered mystically in Franz Biebl's "Ave Maria."
But they came on the heels of Kevin Glavin's over-the-top Santa Claus, complete with bumps and grinds, and required the audience to quickly skid into a quiet classical mode. Suddenly the audience had to gear up once more for a rousing "Hallelujah Chorus," where even the Mendelssohn Choir could not recover enough to deliver.
However the choir began the second half with a magnificent arrangement of traditional carols (and were the spirited heroes of the night). Then Mr. Meyer once again veered far off his appointed path with Emmanuel Chabrier's "Joyeuse Marche," hardly close to the holiday idiom with its abrupt comical twists, but sprightly enough.
That was followed by 13-year-old Sasha Voinov of Franklin Park who took the stage for the third movement of George Gershwin's piano concerto. Filled with the concrete angularities, bustling crowds and overwhelming intensity of New York City (it was originally titled New York Concerto), the piece seemed out of place in this particular concert.
Not that Sasha wasn't up to the task. He savored the jazz inflections without overwhelming them in an elegant interpretation far beyond his years. Perhaps realizing that the Gershwin work reflected a decidedly gray urban sweep, he channeled his inner Liberace with a sparkling green shirt and vest complete with sash and decked with a few boughs of holly on the shoulders.
First Published December 18, 2010 12:00 am
