Picture Postcards

Kodaly-DANCES OF GALANTA; Bartok-VIOLIN CONCERTO #2*; Mussorgsky/Ravel-PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION: Isabelle Faust*/Atlanta Symphony Orchestra/Kevin John Edusei, cond.; March 21

Orchestral technicians are almost a dime a dozen nowadays. Great interpreters are fewer. At first hearing, German-born maestro Kevin John Edusei can clearly handle an orchestra. The jury, however, is still out on his interpretive posture.

The Atlanta Symphony played impressively for the newcomer, aided by the pinpoint clarity of the Woodruff Center's acoustics. After decades of hearing the rich impasto of the Minnesota Orchestra, for instance, or the surprisingly hefty Augusta Symphony, the Atlanta band's sonority comes as somewhat of a shock. It's a lean, transparent sound, light on vibrato (although the strings have eiderdown softness) but long on élan. Put simply, they live up to their hype.

One has certainly heard tonally richer renderings of Zoltan Kodaly's Dances of Galanta, including—surprisingly—that of the modest-sized Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra under Hugh Wolff (Teldec). Edusei's interpretation of the suite was more tone poem than terpsichorean essay. The dance-like, folk-derived character of the music was downplayed in favor of a homogenized, middle-European palette, leavened somewhat by Jesse McCandless' characterful clarinet solos.

Similar homogeneity applied to Bartok's second violin concerto, a work to which I admittedly have not yet warmed. Again, any sort of folkish roots were minimized. The concerto is thought to reflect Bartok's angst over what his native Hungary was suffering under Admiral Horthy's fascistic, anti-Semitic regime in the late 1930s. It certainly sounds like a cri de coeur in Yehudi Menuhin's early recording (on Testament), seconded by a surprisingly spiky Wilhelm Furtwangler.

Guest soloist Isabelle Faust's rendering deemphasized anguish in favor of melancholy and muted virtuosity. She didn't treat the concerto as a showpiece, but one was left feeling there was more in it than she and Edusei extracted. Faust certainly has the violinistic chops for it, as evinced further in a lengthy, delicated shaded and (alas) unnamed encore.

Edusei can craft a program, as his intelligent pairing of best friends Kodaly and Bartok alongside comparably folkish Modest Mussorgsky showed. The latter's Pictures at an Exhibition closed the program and, admittedly, Maurice Ravel's beyond-brilliant orchestration does a great deal of the conductor's work for him. That being said, there's more wit and point in some of its movements than Edusei indicated. Humorous movements like "Tuileries" and "The Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks" were poker-faced, as was "Limoges."

No, Edusei's emphasis was on the bigger and grimmer moments, like memorably expansive readings of "Bydlo" and "The Old Castle." "Catacombs" was suitably mournful, "Baba Yaga" took flight with panache and it was clear that Edusei was scaling his interpretation throughout with an eye to "The Great Gate of Kiev," which made a fittingly monumental capstone. (That's true even after having been spoiled by Sergiu Celibidache's Pictures. No "Great Gate of Kiev" is half so grand as Celi's.) The audience fairly roared its approval and rightly so. Kudos, by the way, to the forthright trumpet solos of Michael Tiscione and the cool-toned, uncredited saxophonist.

Another word on the Woodruff Center auditorium. It may be deficient in charm or architectural style but it leaves nothing to be desired as a space in which to hear acoustical music. In that respect it is the polar opposite of Las Vegas' Reynolds Hall, which—as I can painfully attest—was the consequence of people paying 101% percent of their attention to how it would look ... and none at all to how it would sound. It is a cross that the Las Vegas Philharmonic will have to bear for time immemorial.

At the Woodruff Center, one can fully appreciate the music, unhindered by acoustical blunders. It does not envelop you or knock you back in your chair. Rather it seems to float just in front of one, waiting to be grasped. And it's definitely worth grasping.—David McKee