It was a big orchestra, a big sound, and a big audience as the Hartford Symphony Orchestra opened its 2016-2017 Masterworks Series in the Belding Theater of the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts Friday night.
The evening began with the “Capriccio espagnol” by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. This is a work known for its colorful orchestration and it unfolds like a series of sonic postcards from the perfect vacation. Carolyn Kuan, conductor and music director of the Hartford Symphony, gave space for soloists from every section to shine and the bright colors impressed. The performance culminated in a lively “Fandango asturiano” that gathered momentum and built in complex waves.
Ana Vidovic joined the orchestra as guitar soloist for the “Concierto de Aranjuez for Guitar and Orchestra” by Joaquín Rodrigo. Rodrigo lived from 1901 to 1999. He became fully blind at age 3, but learned to play the piano and also learned to use the Braille system of musical notation. He used a special Braille typewriter to create one of the most beloved guitar concertos written in the 20th century.
The smaller ensemble required for the concerto created the opportunity for intimate sounds and colors. Vidovic led the orchestra into lovely, delicate and whisper-quiet passages that were memorable.
The outer movements were lively and filled with dancing energy, but the second movement of the Rodrigo concerto is a jewel of the literature. Vidovic played the guitar’s ornamented answer to the opening English Horn melody as notated.
Vidovic played the “Recuerdos de la Alhambra” by Francisco Tárrega as an encore. “How does she do that?” whispered several people in the mezzanine. The work explores a technique in which a melodic tremolo is accompanied by an arpeggio played by the right-hand thumb. It is a technique that sounds for all the world like two people playing.
After intermission we heard “Scheherazade” by Rimsky-Korsakov. It was a return to the big orchestra and the big sound that opened the program and it was a satisfying frame for the concert as a whole.
“Scheherazade” can be thought of as a concerto for orchestra in that each instrumental group or soloist has important passages that showcase the virtuosity and also the personality of the orchestra. Kuan once again gave soloists the maximum flexibility to express colors and lines and the orchestra was fluent and authoritative.
Kuan took the third movement at a tempo on the fast side. She explained in the pre-concert lecture that it makes the lovers depicted in the programmatic title of the movement seem younger than interpretations in a slower tempo. It did create a lovely dancing quality that worked nicely.
Hartford Symphony Orchestra’s season opening concert series “Scheherazade” continues Saturday, Oct. 8 at 8 p.m. and 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 9. Tickets: hartfordsymphony.org; 860-987-5900.
