With guest conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya and soprano Twyla
Robinson, the ISO's ninth classical program presented music of Maurice Ravel
and Richard Strauss.
by Tom Aldridge
Friday's Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra program saw a drop
in attendance from the average so far this season. But that average has been higher than in
previous seasons, and we had neither music director Krzysztof Urbański to
conduct nor a big display piece, either of which seems needed to draw them
in. Our guest conductor, Miguel
Harth-Bedoya (47, from Peru), led the orchestra in two repertoire works of
Ravel and Strauss while soprano Twyla Robinson sang five early songs of Strauss
and the short song cycle Shéhérazade
by Ravel. Harth-Bedoya opened with Ravel's well known Rapsodie Espagnole, completed in 1908,
the same year as Debussy's Iberia,
the stronger of the two works in evoking the essence of Spain (let's schedule
it). The Rapsodie is cast into four parts: "Prélude à la nuit," "Malagueña,"
"Habañera" and "Feria"--with a very short pause between each. Starting with the strings intoning a soft,
descending line, the piece remains very soft through its early parts, with loud
interjections increasing in frequency, such that "Feria" ends on a thunderous
climax.…
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