Orchestra News Coverage
May 16, 2007 | NC Wind Orchestra Presents "Time and the Winds" - June 3, 2007 May 13, 2005 | NC Wind Orchestra Concludes Season with Blaze of Glory January 2004 | Belatedly, A Big Berlioz Birthday Bash January 25, 2004 | Votta Has a Midas Touch January 13, 2004 | Leader Marries Brass, Wind Well January 30, 2003 | Votta Evokes UNC Group's Best January 13, 2001 | Regional Music Lovers May 26, 2000 | Copland SaluteLeader Marries Brass, Wind Well
News and Observer
By: Roy C. Dicks
January 13, 2004
Michael Votta, Jr. is a busy man. In addition to teaching conducting and orchestration at UNC-Chapel Hill, he conducts the Triangle Brass Band and the N.C. Wind Orchestra -- groups with full but separate seasons. On Sunday, the groups came together for the first time at Meymandi Concert Hall, and in light of the impressively polished results of the joint program, this should become an annual event, a plan organizers are pursuing.
Each group has more than 40 members, with minimal overlap. Together, these fourscore musicians, a mixture of professional players and skilled laymen, looked and sounded spectacular.
Votta sought out music specifically requiring such massed forces and found works from three centuries. The program opened with Handel's well-known "Music for the Royal Fireworks," played with nearly the same instrumentation (although not the 24 oboes!) as the first outdoor performance in 1749.
Those accustomed to the version with strings (Handel added them for later performances) heard a heavier, fuller sound here, but what it lost in lightness, it gained in grandeur. The five tubas and full row of trumpets filled the auditorium with a rich majesty, while the military drums, bass drum and timpani added visceral excitement. Votta keep a forward-moving tempo and paid special attention to varying the dynamic levels.
For a complete change of pace, the first half concluded with a rare performance of "Dionysiaques" by 20th-century French composer Florent Schmitt. Commissioned in 1913 by the Garde Republicaine band in Paris, the piece gets its name from the Greek god Dionysus and takes the form of an orgiastic dance.
The work is extremely difficult, shifting rhythms, keys and dynamics unexpectedly in skittering lines and abrupt chords. The mood wavers between darkly ominous and brightly frenzied, bringing to mind Stravinsky and Richard Strauss. Votta led an admirably precise performance, drawing crisp playing from a supremely confident orchestra. Although only 10 minutes long, the piece was intriguingly involving, a wonderful find from Votta's research.
The concert's second half consisted of another rarity, the "Grande symphonie funebre et triomphale," Hector Berlioz's 1840 composition commemorating the 1830 revolution in France. Its three movements correspond to sections of a ceremony to bury relics of revolutionary victims. A somber funeral march accompanied the procession to the monument, a lyrical farewell supplemented the placing of the remains, and a hymn of praise welled up as the monument was sealed.
The piece has many familiar Berlioz touches -- arresting melodic turns, long, irregular phrasing and intriguing use of percussion. Because of the work's original purpose, some of its sections become repetitive. Votta did his best to maintain interest, focusing on the contrasts between reverent solemnity and rousing glorification.
Michael Kris displayed smooth tone and precise pitch in the second movement's lyrical trombone solo. The ecstatic outbursts of the finale were thrillingly effective, even without the final choral section Berlioz added later.
Votta deserves credit for honing these two groups to such a distinguished level and for offering such rare fare.