Ensemble director bids farewell in spirited style

April 19, 2005|Globe Staff

Susan Davenny Wyner's final concert as music director of the New England String Ensemble was like many that had preceded it over the last six years: wonderful music, new and old, familiar and not, programmed in an invigorating way, skillfully performed, and conducted with passionate intelligence and radiant emotion.

This last program had the in-the-moment quality of the group's best work while featuring pieces that look both forward and back. The ensemble presented the world premiere of a profoundly beautiful work by the Israeli composer Betty Olivero, ''Achot Ketana" (''In Memoriam"). A mezzo-soprano intones a Hebrew prayer from 13th-century Spain to music based on the opening harmonies and gestures of Bach's ''Chaconne" for solo violin.

The piece is full of echos: Three solo violinists (Gregory Vitale, Ala Jojatu, and Colin Davis) and a clarinetist (Bruce Creditor) stand behind the string ensemble, introduce ideas, and provide commentary, all directed by Olivero's sense of drama and precision of ear. Pamela Dellal's voice emerged from the texture with a thrilling attack; she cradled her tender melody with quietly rapturous singing.

The Harvard Glee Club filed onstage to sing Schubert's meditative ''Song of the Spirit Over the Waters," a setting of a Goethe poem about the voyage of the human soul; the 53 men brought good tone, balance, and involvement.

The tragic slow movement of Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach's astonishing Third Symphony anticipated Richard Strauss's ''Metamorphosen" for 23 strings, his lament for a civilization destroyed by war. It closes with a quotation of the funeral march from Beethoven's ''Eroica" Symphony. The performance was not entirely polished, but the engagement with the music's force and meaning was complete.

A standing ovation that included the players repeatedly recalled the visibly moved Wyner to the stage. Finally, she was offered a musical salute by the men of Harvard in the balcony: a hymn by Gounod, the Latin text adapted to honor a conductor who has made a difference.