Music Review: ‘University Orchestra’
Uriel Segal guides orchestra through challenging program
By Peter Jacobi
October 26, 2007
All those years as director of orchestral activities at the Chautauqua Institution in New York, handling both professional and student ensembles, have prepared Uriel Segal well for his instructional and leadership responsibilities in the IU Jacobs School.
Of late, he’s regularly conducted the well-honed Chamber Orchestra, and now he’s added the University Orchestra to his duties. On Wednesday evening in the Musical Arts Center, he led this full-sized aggregation in a compact yet challenging program holding, as curtain raiser, the Overture to Wagner’s opera “Tannhauser” and, as the main course, Schubert’s Symphony No. 9 in C Major, “The Great.”
The results of his careful guidance were evident throughout. The Wagner calls for some extra-duty work from the brasses. They sounded bright and, for the most part, clean. Fittingly, the whole ensemble produced an abundant and plump sound as the music introduced and developed motifs from the opera reflecting the knight Tannhauser’s conflicted engagement with carnal and spiritual love.
The Schubert Ninth, now considered one of his masterpieces, was mocked and considered unplayable when written. It remained unperformed until 11 years after the composer’s death. At that point, the score came to the attention of Robert Schumann who, in turn, urged Felix Mendelssohn to perform it, which he did with Leipzig’s Gewandhaus Orchestra.
Schumann, as critic, noted that the symphony contained “more than merely lovely melody,” that it had “something above and beyond sorrow and joy . that we are by the music transported to a region where we can never remember to have been before.” What can one add to such sentiments? Well, that the Ninth, because of its more weighty orchestration, affected Schumann’s own music and, later, that of other 19th-century German and Austrian symphonists, from Brahms forward.
The flow of melodies is profuse. The rhythms are catchy. The energy and imagination with which Schubert approached thematic developments are in ample evidence. Segal and company recognized all that and sought to realize these strengths. Their level of success was laudable. They also matched, in performance, the score’s sonorous quality and intensity. A feeling of joy was revealed in their reading, joy coming from the music itself and from young players given the opportunity to wrestle with it.
The Indiana University Jacobs School of Music would like
to thank the Herald Times for permission to republish this review.
