Formidable finale
BFOM bags big bravos
by Christopher Key
There’s no doubt that Maestro Michael Palmer and the Bellingham Festival of Music know how to leave an audience gasping and begging for more. Tonight’s season finale rattled the rafters at Western Washington University’s Performing Arts Center and left the sold-out house as wrung out as the performers must have been.
The orchestra got the audience warmed up quickly with Overture to Don Giovanni, K. 527, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Don Juan, of course, was a legendary libertine whose amorous exploits were such that his name has become synonymous for womanizing males. If we are to believe the Mozart as portrayed in the movie Amadeus, the composer had some ambitions along those lines himself. Whether or not you believe that portrait, this overture leads one to believe that Mozart found Don Juan’s tale more to be celebrated than censured. The BFOM orchestra’s performance was as seductive as the legendary Lothario himself.
One of the reasons tonight’s performance was sold out was because The Romeros were on the bill. They have earned the sobriquet “The Royal Family of the Guitar” partly because no other classical guitar quartet has ever come within shouting distance of their virtuosity. They have also been constant companions of the BFOM over the years and have become Bellingham’s favorite summer residents.
Photo courtesy Bellingham Festival of Music.
I have a particular fondness for the classical guitar because I have some pathetic pretensions toward playing that instrument and I can truly appreciate those who have mastered it. One of the highlights of my life was seeing and hearing the iconic Andres Segovia in concert back in the 1970s. He was near the end of his life and had to be helped onstage. But when he started playing, he was a virile and vital young man to whom age was nothing but a bothersome gnat.
Federico Moreno Torroba was a contemporary of Segovia’s and his Concierto ibérico para cuatro guitarras y orquesta was dedicated to The Romeros. They premiered the work in Vancouver, BC, in 1977 and have made it their own. Their performance of the work this evening was only marred by being occasionally overbalanced by the orchestra. The classical guitar is an instrument of great subtlety and is not loud even at its most rambunctious. The Romeros should have been miked so that we could have heard every delicious note.
Regardless, the audience called them back for two encores. One was a masterful Malagueña and the other not announced. Both were frighteningly fretful pieces of fabulous fingerwork. The Romeros can do more with one hand than most musicians can do with four.
There is only one possible way to follow a performance like that: Beethoven. Maestro Palmer chose to finish the season with Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92, and it was nothing short of phenomenal. The woodwinds were wondrous, the brasses were beautiful, the strings were sensational and the percussion was perfect. One of the ways you know when you have witnessed a magnificent performance is when a relatively small aggregation of virtuosos suddenly sounds like there are a couple hundred musicians onstage. They rocked the PAC right down to its foundations and I’ve given up counting how many standing ovations they received this year. Every one earned.
The BFOM is a treasure that much bigger cities would love to have among their attractions. Every one of their concerts deserves to be sold out and their all-volunteer staff is to be congratulated for reviving this once-threatened festival. If you’ve been reading these reviews and think they’re overstated, think again. This is a world-class festival and you’d better think about getting your tickets for next year right now.
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