Well shaped performance of “the greatest First Symphony”

By Peter Alexander July 11 at 12:24 a.m.

The world premiere of an engaging concerto for saxophone by American composer Joan Tower topped the bill at the Colorado Music Festival last night (July 10).

The Festival Orchestra was conducted by CMF music director Peter Oundjian, with Steven Banks as saxophone soloist. Tower was present for the premiere performance of her new score, and spoke briefly before the performance.

Titled Love Returns, the score is derived from a piece for solo piano titled Love Letter that Tower wrote in memory of her late husband after his death in 2022. Poignant, well constructed and emotionally coherent, Love Returns should become part of the concert repertoire for saxophone. 

The first of the work’s six movements starts tenderly, with beautiful string sounds providing a warm embrace for the soloist. Over the next three movements, the music grows in intensity, reaching an uneasy high point built from nervous swirls in the saxophone. The Fifth movement is a solo cadenza, developing jumpy fragments of scales. 

A virtuosic series of edgy passages leads into the final movement, where the nervous swirls loosen and return to the calm of the work’s opening. This creates a perceptible expressive arc, while the gentle ending suggests a moment of acceptance before the music settles into silence.

With a sweet tone and flawless technique, Banks gave an exemplary performance. The fluidity of his rapid passagework was remarkable, and he moved smoothly through all the shifts of mood and style. He has the ability to fade to silence in even the highest register. If recorded, his performance would create the standard for this valuable new work.

The concert opened with Aaron Copland’s Outdoor Overture, a strongly profiled work written for students at the High School of Music and Art in New York. To recognize the work’s origin, Oundjiuan turned over the podium to the CMF’s young assistant conductor Stefano Boccaci, who lead a bracing performance. 

Copland’s alternating sections of vigor and delicacy were well marked. As appropriate for a school piece, all sections of the orchestra have opportunities to step forward. The bright trumpet solos of principal Jeffrey Work were acknowledged at the end, but every section earned recognition. 

The concert ended with Brahms Symphony No. 1, which Oundjian likes to call “the greatest first symphony ever written.” Before the performance, he also noted that Brahms took 21 years to complete the symphony, during which time he progressed from a callow young musician to an experienced composer of international rank.

Oundjian and the Festival Orchestra gave a well shaped, controlled performance. The tense introduction to the first movement promised the drama to come. Throughout the engrossing first movement, the music surged from the tiniest pianissimos to full Brahmsian fortes. Oundjian convincingly varied the tempo to match the expressive needs of the score.

The slow second movement was carefully played but never came alive. The third movement projected relaxed good cheer, especially in the strolling music played by the woodwinds. Drama came to the fore again in the finale, which Oundjian built carefully to the climax. I heard bravos and cries of “Oh My God” at the end, signaling how well the symphony reached the audience.

The program will be repeated at 6:30 tonight (July 11) at the Chautauqua Auditorium. Tickets are available through the CMF Web Page.