The Sedona Symphony hosted guest clarinetist Ralph Skiano of the Detroit Symphony as its soloist for its third concert of the 2023-24 season on Sunday, Feb. 4, at the Sedona Performing Arts Center. Skiano joined the symphony to perform Carl Maria von Weber’s Clarinet Concerto No. 1, which was bracketed by Claude Debussy’s “Petite Suite” and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Symphony No. 35 in D Major.
One of Debussy’s youthful works, the “Petite Suite” was originally written for piano and later orchestrated for a full ensemble. It is simple, yet exquisitely melodic. The suite features a substantial part for harp and in some respects can almost be thought of as a harp concerto, given the way in which the harp converses with the orchestra throughout.
The first movement is leisured, sunny and elegant, an aural accompaniment to the era of the Impressionist painters. Of particular note here was the impressively uniform bowing of the violins, whose improved consistency showed up again in the second movement. Lighter and bouncier, it still had an impressive richness for such a technically straightforward work, which burst out twice in unexpected but delightful crescendi.
In her opening remarks, Artistic Director Janna Hymes referred to the movement’s origins in a poem by Paul Verlaine that described the antics of a lady of fashion, a monkey and an attendant tumbling irrepressibly over one another.
The violins again hit the right combination of wistfulness and precision in the third movement, while the fourth movement, marked in the score as a ballet, started off brassy, band-like and bold before losing itself for a short while in the middle of the section and then waltzing its way to a lively finish. With its careful attention to detail and sheer thematic grace, the symphony’s flawless rendition of the Debussy suite was perhaps the finest performance it has given in the past two seasons.
Carl Maria von Weber’s first clarinet concerto is an unusual work that emphasizes the contrast between what was, at the time, a comparatively new and stillevolving instrument and the established forces of the symphony orchestra. It opened with an ominous line on the cellos and basses before erupting in volume, rather like the overture to an opera by Antonio Salieri. Weber elected to have the orchestra take a darker tone against the bright and joyous timbre of the solo instrument, and the sweetness and power of Skiano’s playing heightened the very different colors of the two halves of the concerto. The first movement shifted between exploratory and bubbly — and then left the audience hanging with an ambiguous abrupt ending.
Weber’s use of the cliffhanger returned in the second movement. At first meditative, with the soloist reposing in contemplation over the low hum of the strings, and then turbulent and uneasy, it introduced a second false finish that was succeeded by an intriguing interaction between the clarinet and the horns. They went on to have a whole agreeable conversation of their own while the rest of the orchestra played a supporting role. The sparkling final movement, a rondo, circled back to the soloist-ensemble distinction as the youthful playfulness of the clarinet danced its way through the might of the orchestra, and their audible differences were reinforced by the very distinct way in which Weber separated the movement’s themes.
Listeners in the composer’s day would have gotten a hint here of how the clarinet would help shake up the musical world of the future in its role as a jazz instrument. Without being jazzy, the concerto is a work that makes it possible to anticipate the emergence of jazz a century later. Skiano’s fingering in the jaunty reprise was also outstanding.
Following intermission, Sedona Symphony Board of Trustees President Sue Buffum suggested that the audience save the date for Saturday, April 27, for a possible fifth concert to close out the season. Hymes and the Symphony then tackled Mozart’s Symphony No. 35, sometimes called the Haffner Symphony, as a substitution for Francis Poulenc’s Sinfonietta, which had originally been programmed. Lying as they do between the strongest influences of the Baroque and Romantic periods, Mozart’s late symphonies present interpreters with a wide range of possibilities, particularly with regard to tempo. A slower choice allows the music to develop with greater stateliness; a faster choice delivers the headlong rush of speed that is so often a Mozart hallmark.
Hymes went for the drive of a speedy tempo, challenging the orchestra with the symphony’s opening acrobatics. The allegro opened with appropriate spirit, with the brass pronounced and adding to the vigorous fire of the themes. This movement was a celebratory speech, a confident declaration of arrival. The second movement, less energetic and more highly structured than the first, was the occasion for more fine bowing and made for a charming moment of repose. In the third movement, in spite of, again, a faster tempo, Hymes shifted the balance of the sound in favor of elegance, and in the final movement, which Mozart directed should be played “as fast as possible,” Hymes threw down the glove to the composer, in a sense, departing from her previously quick tempi and taking a more measured approach. The dominant brass playing of the first movement might have come in even more effectively here.
The concert also drew one of the largest crowds in recent Sedona Symphony attendance, including a particularly noticeable sprinkling of former clarinetists who turned out to enjoy the vicarious delights of Skiano’s performance. The SPAC stage has been hosting a few of the less common solo instruments this spring, and audiences are enjoying the change
