In Wednesday’s (4/29) Philadelphia Inquirer, David Patrick Stearns writes, “It was the end of the school year and the night before a Carnegie Hall gig with concert repertoire that thrives on heat. So the Curtis Symphony Orchestra was all but guaranteed to rearrange your hair Monday at the Kimmel Center. … More-than-capable Michael Stern led the heavy 21/2-hour program that was most notable for Prokofiev’s Sinfonia concertante (Op. 125), a huge lost-amid-Soviet-foolishness work featuring [guest] cellist Carter Brey. … Stern (son of violinist Isaac Stern) is bound to inspire the usual offspring-of-a-famous-person skepticism, but Monday’s performance suggested that’s unwarranted. … Part of the joy of Curtis performances is the eagerness among musicians to pull their weight. … Stern kept that energy harnessed in all the right ways.” Also on the all-Russian program, which was repeated at Carnegie the following night, was the Suite from Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet and the 1947 version of Stravinsky’s Petrushka.
Posted April 30, 2009
