BMC Orchestra sounds better than ever in Beethoven concert
Brevard Music Center
… I thought that the BMC Orchestra’s performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, led by König, was the best symphonic performance I’ve ever heard up in Brevard. … This performance had snap and kinetic energy from the very beginning of the Allegro con brio. But König’s brilliance imbued more than the lively tempos. The cellos had a nice foreboding thrust in the placid section of the movement, and in the quietest episode, before the trombone triggered the last crescendo, there was a special expectancy as we approached the brink. Plunging into the Marcia funebre second movement, König refused to let the tension or the drama dissipate. Principal players in the woodwind section worked together beautifully in the quiet section, setting the stage for a grand entrance by the brass in the climactic moments. At the start of the penultimate Scherzo, there was a busy percolation from the winds and the strings that reprised the tensile strength of the opening movement, with a suddenness in the crescendos that Haydn would have loved. The French horns earned their subsequent bows right here, connecting the quiet episodes to the jubilant romps. The exuberance of this orchestra was perhaps most audible in the Allegro molto finale, with pizzicatos after the roaring start that were nothing like the stealthy cats’ feet you barely hear on so many recordings. König obviously wasn’t worried about squandering the dramatic contrasts that lay ahead, and he didn’t. Quiet passages had a restless ambiguity with a ready-to-burst eagerness pulsing inside, making the lone clarinet sound more relaxed before the circling figures that signalled the grandest build of this mercurial movement…. The beautifully crafted ending left me wanting more. Another robust ovation from the audience, including loud screams from the students in the crowd, confirmed that they were also hungry for a König encore. Judging by the rapport he has established with the BMC Orchestra, I’d assume that faculty and festival officials have a similar feeling about inviting König back for years to come.
By Perry Tannenbaum, July 24, 2015 – Brevard, NC
READ full article HERE: BMC Orchestra Sounds Better than Ever in Beethoven Concert
Whittington-Pfohl Auditorium
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