Sonia Marie De León de Vega conducted the Santa Cecilia Orchestra Sunday in a splendid program at Occidental College's Thorne Hall: Beethoven's Egmont Overture and 7th Symphony, and Handel's Water Music Suite. The playing was flawless, the phrasing and dynamic control magnificent, and we had superb sonics sitting in the fourth row.
I enjoyed Beethoven's orchestration to a greater degree than ever before, because each timbral element came from a definite spatial location. In my mind, with my eyes closed, I likened the music to a 3-D cutaway automobile with multiple levels of x-ray detail, which would "light up" here and there, revealing the whole auto by the sum of its parts. I guess it was a 50's car because certain of the elements would be the fins, others the chrome.
The string writing in Egmont was particularly wonderful and lush. Who can beat Beethoven at brilliant string writing? I am amazed how he can create effects with strings alone, e.g. certain material behave and sound like "brass parts". And the Santa Cecilia orchestra projected that wonderfully.
The 7th Symphony never ceases to amaze me. Those interior movements are friggin' long!! In fact, the scherzo made me laugh. It's really a scherzo with an atrophied trio that swallows the whole movement. He manages a recap of the scherzo, but it's so pro-forma and brief!
We got a nice, meaty bass sound all concert long because we were seated on "house left", and the "stage left" cellos were pointed right at us. At second desk there was a young (college age) cellist who was really emoting with her face and mannerisms all the enjoyment she was getting from the music. I'd hate to kill youthful joy, but the optics weren't great, because at first chair was a player with a controlled expression, but who could play the HELL out of her instrument. Afterwards, backstage, I told her: "you were a machine!" (which she enjoyed hearing).
Maestro De León de Vega said that this concert was managed with only two rehearsals. I don't know how you do that! There were so many demands of phrasing, style and tapered diminuendo/ritards in the Handel. And so much of the Beethoven effects are like "stunts" that you have to coordinate perfectly, or it's just slop. How would you find time to rehearse each one of those moments? Apart from one French horn clam, the whole concert was flawless. But no matter how it was achieved, Ms. De León de Vega showed that she is a magnificent interpreter of the music.
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