Classical music review: Oregon Symphony has an outstanding, if not ...

Carlos Miguel Prieto knows how to work a crowd. The music director of the Orquesta Sinf?nica Nacional de Mexico and the Louisiana Philharmonic opened the Oregon Symphony's concert Saturday night with a joke -- making his first OSO appearance, he walked onstage violin in hand, pretending to be a guest concertmaster -- and ended it by nearly blowing the roof off the place with a high-contrast, high-tension performance of Maurice Ravel's arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition."

Oregon Symphony

When: 8 p.m. Monday

Where: Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 S.W. Broadway

Tall and energetic, he led with big, muscular gestures eliciting attacks and cutoffs so precise that the silences between phrases nearly rang, and Ravel's colors came out under his baton bright and saturated. He understood the power of well-played fortissimos and bulldozing drive, leading off "Pictures" with growling low strings and explosive sforzandos and ending it with a very majestic and very loud treatment of the closing bars.

Guitarist Sharon Isbin joined the orchestra for Joaquin Rodrigo's "Fantas?a para un gentilhombre." Carefully miked to two speakers on the floor behind her, she was loud enough to project a warm, round tone throughout the hall but quiet enough to underscore the essential softness of the guitar sound and giving the impression of drawing the orchestra into intimate dances and dialogues; her playing was as technically arresting as it was expressively alluring.

Balance between guitarist and orchestra was a bit of an issue during the first movement, but the greater issue was the programming. By my count, the symphony has brought three guitar soloists for seven appearances in the last quarter-century, and only twice has one of the Rodrigo pieces -- the other warhorse being the "Concerto de Aranjuez" -- not been on the program. According to the program book, the symphony's last performance of the Fantas?a was in 1991; according to the archives of this newspaper, it was in 2002.

I know; I wrote about this three years ago, when Eduardo Fernandez came to town:

"Given that classical guitarists rarely turn up on the average symphony program, and given also that Joaquin Rodrigo's 'Concerto de Aranjuez' is unquestionably a masterpiece, it would be churlish to complain about a guitarist joining the Oregon Symphony for the 'Concerto de Aranjuez,' right? Maybe so, but I'd like to register a complaint on behalf of the rest of the repertoire.

"When orchestras engage guitarists, there's a pretty good chance they'll perform Rodrigo. True, the last time Christopher Parkening came to Portland, he didn't play the 'Concerto de Aranjuez' -- he played the second-favorite Rodrigo warhorse, the 'Fantasia para un gentilhombre.' Symphony people, there are plenty of guitar concertos out there crying for your attention. The Cuban composer Leo Brouwer has written nearly a dozen. Sharon Isbin featured two recent examples, by Christopher Rouse and Tan Dun, on her terrific 2001 concerto CD. Leo Kottke and Stephen Paulus collaborated on one, incorporating Kottke's folk- and blues-rooted music into the orchestral idiom. How great it would be to hear this music."

The point still stands. Pretty please?

In any event, the players brought their A game throughout the night; brass and percussion in particular put in outstanding performances. Both guests seemed to have great chemistry with the orchestra, so maybe if we tell them that unsuppressed, protracted coughing from the audience during all the quiet parts is just the local way of showing appreciation, they'll want to come back.

- James McQuillen

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