For two decades, the New World Symphony has provided local audiences with first-class performances, but it is the organization's educational mission that has had the most far-reaching impact. New World alums have taken up positions around the globe, many in first-rank ensembles, an eloquent testament to the quality of post-conservatory professional training provided by artistic director Michael Tilson Thomas and the New World staff.
MTT and the New World Symphony wrapped their 20th season with a special event billed as a ''musical homecoming'' Saturday night at the Adrienne Arsht Center's Knight Concert Hall. Over 20 former New World members returned to perform alongside current orchestra musicians in two celebrated Russian ballet showpieces that closed the season in notably brilliant and exuberant style.
Just 36 years separate the premieres of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring but the ground breaking seismic violence of the latter makes them seem to belong to far-flung epochs. Any music that motivates Frenchmen to hit each other with umbrellas has something important to say, and the riot that ensued at the 1913 Paris premiere demonstrated that something new, dark and disturbing was happening in Russian music.
Stravinsky's audacious score, depicting ancient pagan rites, tribal dances and virgin sacrifice, has lost none of its power in the intervening near-century with its merciless rhythmic brutality, grinding dissonances and screaming collision of keys and rhythms.
After a wobbly opening bassoon solo, this Rite got quickly on track. This music is a Tilson Thomas specialty and his inspired direction brought out the bleak pagan darkness, enhanced by wonderfully atmospheric woodwind solos. Rite of Spring remains one of the most tortuously difficult works in the repertoire yet the New World members -- past and present -- served up a commanding performance that brought out all the primeval violence, unleashing playing of enormous intensity and awesome sonic fury.
The concert's first half proved less nerve-wracking with Act 3 from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.
While there is a dramatic coda when the Prince realizes he has been duped with the evil Odile substituted for his love Odette, most of Act 3 is a festive court scene and divertissement replete with several brilliant character dances.
Tchaikovsky's ballet score is the kind of exuberant theatrical work that finds Tilson Thomas at his best. The bolero rhythms of the Spanish Dance had the requisite Iberian lilt, and the Hungarian Czardas was thrown off with tremendous swagger, brassy and brilliant yet impeccably balanced.
The high-gleam corporate polish and luminous individual playing was dazzling even by New World standards. Justin Bartels, principal of the Columbus (Ohio) Symphony, served up a bravura trumpet solo in the Neapolitan Dance, and Leonid Sigal -- concertmaster of the Hartford Symphony and former assistant concertmaster of the Florida Philharmonic -- provided a superbly idiomatic violin solo in the Russian Dance.
A whirlwind encore of the Russian Sailor's Dance from Gliere's The Red Poppy ended the evening in rousing style.
