April 01, 2008
This is no April Fools’ joke. Chris Pasles of the LA Times reviewed Harry Bicket and Douglas Davis’s performance in LACO’s London Triumph concert.
Pasles writes, “British early music specialist Harry Bicket took the helm of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra at Royce Hall, UCLA, on Sunday, leading muscular, invigorating performances of early Mendelssohn, a familiar concerto by C.P.E. Bach and Haydn’s final symphony.
...Bicket evinced a direct, no-nonsense approach to the selections on Sunday’s program. He favored brisk tempos, dynamic contrasts and minimal vibrato, which gave a silvery coolness to the music but often at the expense of warmth or charm.
...There was a real pleasure in hearing him juxtapose contrasting, pared-down quartets in the slow movement or run chases and echoing hurrahs between groups in the third. The orchestra played with buoyancy, and Bicket seemed to be beaming.
LACO principal cellist Douglas Davis was the soloist in C.P.E. Bach’s familiar Cello Concerto in A, a bridge work between Baroque and Classical styles.
Davis was fleet and dexterous and was most songful in the slow middle movement, in which the other strings play with their mutes on.
...After the performance, the cellist, who has been with the orchestra for more than 30 years, announced that the current season is his last. As a non-lugubrious encore, he played his own upbeat version of “The Swan” from Saint-Saëns’ “Carnival of the Animals,” ending in an ethereal pianissimo.
The concert ended with a rousing performance of Haydn’s London Symphony with the Orchestra at peak form and Bicket at his most exuberant.”
Read the full review in the April 1 edition of the Los Angeles Times.