Another “shiningstar” was Joseph Schwantner, the American composer of the first work, ChasingLight. This four-movement work reflects Schwantner's New Hampshire homespecifically theexperience of dawn. It begins with a highly dramatic, tam-tam-punctuated firstmovement, a Coplandesque second, an engrossing third (with climaxes brought onby stalking tympani) and an appropriately powerful finale. Conductor AlexanderPlatt led a performance that was good enough to have been a professionalrecording session.
Two concertomovements ensued thereafter: young Allison Rich gave a very solid reading ofthe finale to Elgar's Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op. 85, and Seth King-Genglerrendered a strong, passionate performance of the finale to Beethoven's PianoConcerto No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 37.
The culminating workon the program was Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67, which, thoughnot without moments of brilliance, was on the whole uneven and unsatisfying.Perhaps this was due to the fact that the Wisconsin Philharmonic was augmentedby several teenage instrumentalists? (This was, after all, the first attempt ata blended orchestra). But I'd like to see this tried again with, I'd suggest, aless ambitious work.
