Flutist, organist make Masterworks concert lively

It was once a once-a-season thing for the Arkansas Symphony to bring one of its principals forward to solo in front of, instead of inside, the orchestra. But it has been a while since that happened.

Which is one reason it was such a joy to see — and hear — principal flutist Carolyn Brown in the d minor Flute Concerto by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach at Saturday night’s Stella Boyle Smith Masterworks concert at Little Rock’s Robinson Center Performance Hall.

Brown’s virtuosity was on full display, particularly in the achingly gorgeous, aria-like second movement and the tempestuous, nonstop third (right up to the tempestuous, nonstop finale).

A chamber-sized string ensemble (six in each violin section, four each violas and cellos, two basses and a harpsichord) was excellent in support. Conductor Geoffrey Robson was fairly intense on the podium as he directed his string players into pianissimo passages.

Especially compared to the spare instrumentation in the concerto, the stage was practically packed to the walls for Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Organ” Symphony (No. 3 in c minor), a titanic warhorse that is very likely to be the most fun piece on the orchestra’s schedule this season.

Colin MacKnight, organist and director of music at Little Rock’s Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, was at the keyboard of an imported electric organ for the obbligato part, making his presence softly known in the second movement and fully and grandly in the fourth.

The melancholy low-string opening passages of the curtain-raiser, Astor Piazzolla’s “Tangazo,” picked up in tempo and mood once the woodwinds entered.

Brown, MacKnight, Robson and the orchestra will repeat the program at 3 p.m. today at Robinson, 426 W. Markham St. at Broadway. Ticket information is available by calling (501) 666-1761, Ext. 1, or online at ArkansasSymphony.org.