ASO hits ‘Classical Heights’
The high point in the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra’s “Classical Heights” on Saturday night before a small in-person audience at Little Rock’s Robinson Center Performance Hall was definitely the collaboration among the orchestra, conductor Geoffrey Robson, co-concertmaster Andrew Irvin and Timothy MacDuff as violin and viola soloists, respectively, in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Sinfonia Concertante.”
In a piece for which the composer, no mean violist, was probably the original viola soloist, that larger string “cousin” doesn’t merely play second fiddle to the violin. It’s a colloquy of equals, a practically operatic duet between two strong voices.
And the performance matched in just about every respect. Irvin and MacDuff sang to one another, to their orchestral colleagues and to the audience, about a couple of hundred strong.
The second movement, achingly beautiful as Mozart middle movements usually are, was particularly gorgeous.
As a lagniappe, Robson, the orchestra’s interim artistic director and a candidate for the permanent conductor’s spot, added a fine performance of the fourth and final movement of Mozart’s final symphony, No. 41, titled “Jupiter.”
Socially distancing the orchestra members may have contributed to some momentary disjointedness and balance issues that also affected the curtain-raiser, Sergei Prokofiev’s “Symphony No. 1,” titled “Classical,” a conscious hark-back to the 18th century era of Mozart and Franz Josef Haydn. Robson saved the flash and dash for the fourth movement after three movements with surprisingly slow tempos — the third-movement “Gavotte,” supposed to be stately, verged on the ponderous.
The concert will repeat at 3 p.m. Sunday at Robinson, 426 W. Markham St. at Broadway. Covid-19 protocols, including mask-wearing and social distancing, will be in place.
The orchestra is also recording the concerts for streaming, starting at 7:30 p.m. next Saturday via its website, ArkansasSymphony. org/classical-heights. “Live” and streaming tickets are “pay what you can” with a minimum donation of $10. Call (501) 666-1761, Extension 1.