North and South, Familiar and Unfamiliar Meet at Concord Concert

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Steve Jarvis

The Concord Chamber Orchestra, under the baton of Jamin Hoffman, closed its concert season in resounding fashion (literally) at St. Sebastian Parish last Saturday night with a performance of classical pieces largely differentiated by geography (the concert’s theme and title was “North // South”). The hard surfaces inside the large facility simply rang with great music performed brilliantly, that evening.

The program began with Jean Sibelius’ Karelia Overture, which brought to mind our just-passed Wisconsin winter that was so reluctant to depart our environs. The orchestra’s strings and brass were exquisite in this performance. Then followed Wolfgang Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21, with Gregory Hartmann as soloist. The young pianist-composer displayed both attributes superbly. He fairly reveled in performance of this beloved concerto, applying his compositional skills to the first-movement cadenza and, as Hartmann later informed me, a cadenza by a friend to that of the finale. To everyone’s delight, he performed a breezy prelude (Op. 41, No. 12) encore by Russian-American composer Lera Auerbach directly thereafter.

The concert wrapped up with seldom (if ever!) performed works by Norwegian composer Geirr Tveitt, returning us to Scandinavia. In unearthing and revealing such works as the Folktunes from Hardanger so beautifully and evocatively, Hoffman and the CCO did a real service to classical music performance history—and discovery—in Wisconsin. The concert ended in glorious fashion with a fine performance of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s melodious Capriccio Espagnol. In a sense, the concert began with a reflection of winter past and a prelude to a warm and sunny Wisconsin summer.