Ken Herman, San Diego Story, 11th June 2015
“Ever since Robert Schumann proclaimed Felix Mendelssohn as ‘the Mozart of the Nineteenth Century,’ it has seemed entirely natural to program the music of these two composers side by side. Too often, however, Mendelssohn’s mellifluous ease is overshadowed by Mozart’s quicksilver psychological complexity, but Mainly Mozart Music Director Michael Francis put Mendelssohn in the driver’s seat at Wednesday’s (June 10) Festival Orchestra concert at the Balboa with a masterful account of Mendelssohn’s Fourth Symphony.
From the opening phrases, the Fourth Symphony (called the ‘Italian,’ since he wrote this work following an extended visit to Italy) exploded with buoyant bursts whose energy never dissipated. Francis drew a silken, integrated ensemble from the strings, to which the winds added luminescent colors to balance the composer’s elegant musical equation. Because Francis deftly shaped the work’s dynamic trajectory, myriad details glossed over by typical symphonic accounts—with their massive string sections—came vividly to life.
Frankly, I have never been so completely enchanted by the “Spring” Symphony and now see it from a completely different perspective.
Some details to cherish: the low strings’ haunting bass line that propelled the religious procession depicted in the second movement; the sleek, well-tuned horn fanfares of the third movement; Principal Oboe Nathan Hughes’ glistening solos throughout the symphony, and the flutes’ delirious fluttering motifs in the closing movement.”
