Ludwig van Beethoven—born on December 17, 1770—still has 14 months to go before
his 250th anniversary, but that isn’t stopping musicians, ensembles, and orchestras all over the globe from taking advantage of a two-year celebration period that began way back in 2018. The University of Tennessee School of Music has been one of the organizations with a lot of Beethoven250 on their plate. The UT Symphony Orchestra, under James Fellenbaum, started it off last fall with Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, following it up this past February with the Choral Fantasy with faculty pianist David Brunell. That same month saw an intensely satisfying, three-recital journey through the Beethoven Violin Sonatas with faculty violinist Miroslav Hristov and his piano colleague Chih-Long Hu. Last month, the UTSO tackled the iconic Fifth Symphony; last week saw faculty horn player Katie Johnson-Webb joined by KSO principal horn Jeffery Whaley for Beethoven’s early Sextet in E-flat, op. 81b, for two horns and string quartet. And, finally, this past Sunday afternoon found Fellenbaum and the UTSO performing the Beethoven masterpiece—Piano Concerto No. 5 (“Emperor”)—featuring faculty pianist Hu. The orchestra will wrap up Beethoven250 in February with the Ninth Symphony, offering one of those memorable concert opportunities to the UTSOM’s choral and orchestral players.
Sunday’s audience, though, was unwilling to wait until February for a memorable concert. Pianist Hu and conductor Fellenbaum provided a bright and bold interpretation that allowed Hu plenty of room for both the glistening, feathery moments and the perky details that bring a smile to one’s face. The second movement, Adagio un poco mosso, one of the most soothing, yet mysterious slow movements in all of concerto-dom, was beautifully painted by Hu with a reveal of subtle touches and melodic details.
Equally important for a university orchestra, though, is the opportunity to play with a brilliant soloist, experiencing the give and take of dynamics, rhythm, and tempo in a concerto and the demands of flexibility in following the conductor and supporting the soloist.
The second half of the program featured grad student conductor Logan Campbell leading the UTSO in Edward Elgar’s Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 36, (“Enigma Variations”). Campbell, who was recently selected for one of the conductorships with the Knoxville Symphony Youth Orchestras, took on the challenge of finding individual colors and textural meanings from the theme and 14 variations. Campbell kept the mood bright, but purposefully appropriate to each variation, and the orchestral playing attentive to the clarity of his direction.
The UT orchestra program now splits for the remainder of the term into two groups: the Opera Orchestra that will be in the Bijou pit for Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore (November 8-10) and the Chamber Orchestra which will collaborate with the Oak Ridge Civic Ballet Association’s The Nutcracker (November 23 and 24).
