Symphonia sets stage for successful season of sounds.

Byline: Concert review by Peter Bergquist For The Register-Guard

THE AMERICAN Symphonia, directed by James Paul, gave its first concert of the season Sunday afternoon at the Hult Center.

The orchestra has performed as part of the Oregon Festival of American Music for a number of years under Paul's leadership; now it begins its own series of six orchestral and chamber concerts as part of the festival's larger program.

This concert, titled "American Legends," included compositions based on four American stories, some historical, some not, that have achieved legendary status.

The opener was George Chadwick's "Rip Van Winkle" Overture, composed in 1879. One doesn't always think of American music as existing that long ago, but some very able composers lived and worked in this hemisphere in the 1800s and even earlier.

Chadwick, like others of his generation, was trained in Europe. He composed this overture at age 25, while he was studying in Munich. It's a well written piece of music, formally coherent and well orchestrated, and worth programming.

It's easy to hear German models in the music, especially Robert Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn, with a touch of Richard Wagner now and then. Because Washington Irving's Rip van Winkle story was itself based on German sources, Chadwick's music comes by its accent honestly.

Paul and the orchestra gave a committed, energetic performance. The orchestra sounds very good in Silva Hall's new acoustic shell, with greatly enhanced resonance, balance, and presence of its sound compared to previous seasons.

Morton Gould's "Fall River Legend" Suite, composed in 1947, was the next offering. The suite is drawn from a ballet score that Gould wrote for Agnes de Mille, the subject being the story of Lizzie Borden and her alleged murder of her parents.

The facts surrounding the murder remain in dispute, but de Mille's Freudian scenario assumed Lizzie's guilt and ended with her hanging.

Gould's music stands well by itself without de Mille's trappings. Its prologue and epilogue are suitably ominous, while the rest of the score focuses on dances and church activities in Fall River, Mass. It's brilliant, energetic music, perhaps not the most profound, but expressive of its subject and surroundings.

Paul led a dynamic performance of the score, clearly bringing out its complex rhythms. The orchestra followed Paul beautifully.

The two compositions heard after intermission were the most interesting. The first was "Uirapuru," a ballet score composed by Heitor Villa-Lobos in 1917. OFAM always has included music from all of the Americas in its orbit, and this piece by Brazil's most famous composer was very welcome on the program.

Villa-Lobos based this particular piece on an old Brazilian legend about an enchanted bird. His music includes not only bird music but also representations of the tropical rain forest in which the story unfolds.

The colorful score includes some native percussion instruments, and a "violinophone," which, from where I sat, appeared to be a violin with an acoustical horn attached, and perhaps altered in other ways to produce an untypical nasal sound.

The regular and unusual instruments combined in music of high rhythmic energy, colorful harmony and scoring and appealing melodies.

Once again, Paul's conducting was impeccable, and the orchestra collaborated with him in a powerful performance. Many members of the orchestra had prominent solo passages, all beautifully played, so many that I hesitate to mention any of them for fear of leaving someone out.

The concert ended with Aaron Copland's "Billy the Kid" Suite, drawn from a ballet composed in 1938 for Lincoln Kirstein.

Because of the subject, Copland included several more or less recognizable cowboy tunes in his score, and the suite and ballet have both been popular favorites ever since their premieres.

The borrowed tunes reinforce the American atmosphere of Copland's music, which from its opening notes speaks of the prairies and those who live there.

One of Paul's many strong points as a conductor is obviously ballet music, and this performance of Copland's classic score was everything one could wish for.

Paul has developed a fine rapport with the excellent American Symphonia, and this concert was very much up to the standard they have established in previous years. The rest of their season should be very enjoyable indeed.

Peter Bergquist is a professor emeritus at the University of Oregon School of Music. He reviews classical music for The Register-Guard.