New York Classical Review

Leon Botstein, the college president who conducts orchestras, will soon be shedding one of those roles, but he did a creditable job with the other in Carnegie Hall Tuesday night, leading his graduate-student band The Orchestra Now in an ambitious all-Richard Strauss program.

During his 51 years as president of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, Botstein’s fundraising prowess has been credited with turning the college around financially and putting it on the cultural map of greater New York. But in the process, he befriended one wealthy donor too many; revelations about his relationship with the disgraced (and disgraceful) financier Jeffrey Epstein have led to his stepping down as president, effective next month.

There was no hint of this controversy inside or outside the hall Tuesday. In fact, his orchestra of master’s-degree candidates (supplemented for the vast Eine Alpensinfonie by members of the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra) seemed, if anything, to rally to his support with focused, enthusiastic playing.

There was every reason for these young artists to relate to the Burleske for piano and orchestra, since Strauss was just 21 years old and on the threshold of his career when he composed it, teetering in style between the classicism of Brahms and Liszt’s “Music of the Future.”

There certainly was a Brahmsian tone to the whole piece, with its gnarly counterpoints and cross-rhythms, dense thematic development and robust piano writing. Soloist Blair McMillen delivered his part with admirable energy, transparency and a keen sense of voicing, not to mention speedy passagework and leggiero flourishes where called for.

But there was also a hint of Lisztian cheekiness to the way Strauss opened the piece with an unaccompanied solo for timpani, then elevated that instrument to a featured role throughout. Timpanist Pei Hsien (Ariel) Lu sparred delightfully with pianist McMillen in Tuesday’s performance.

Even the piece’s revised title—from the original Scherzo to the saucier Burleske—hinted that young Strauss was ready to make his move from Classical models to the late-Romantic showmanship of his tone poems. Straussian moments to come could be heard in the orchestra’s airy passages and waltz interludes, nicely executed in this performance.

Whatever his later dissonant modern excursions, there remained an incurable Romantic inside Strauss throughout his career. Inspired by a birthday serenade from a male choir, the 64-year-old Strauss composed Die Tageszeiten (The Times of Day), a mellow four-song cycle for men’s chorus and orchestra to poems by Joseph von Eichendorff.

On Tuesday, men of the Bard Festival Choir (ably prepared by James Bagwell) began the opening song “Der Morgen” (Morning) robustly a cappella, as if summoning the orchestra’s response, a spectacular Straussian sunrise. The complex tonality of “Mittagsruh” (Midday Rest) was a test of the performers’ ensemble and tuning, which they passed with flying (and shimmering and balanced) colors.

Distant timpani thunder and piccolo lightning ushered in “Der Abend” (Evening), in which harp and muted strings cast a soft light over the choir’s meditative lines. A deep organ note and pianissimo chorus evoked the slumbering earth in “Die Nacht” (Night), with clarinet and flute solos wheeling overhead like constellations as repeated dominant-tonic cadences floated this cycle down to a gentle close.

This evocative performance boded well for a far more dramatic “day in the life” piece, as the Carnegie stage filled almost to bursting with musicians for Eine Alpensinfonie (An Alpine Symphony), a musical account of one day’s trek to a mountain summit and back.

And indeed, the pregnant darkness at the piece’s opening gave way to bold strides up the mountain driven by horns. Other scenes, such as the climbers’ getting lost in a thicket of dissonance or pausing by a sparkling waterfall, came through vividly. The crescendo to the summit and its spectacular view was richly satisfying.

To avoid anticlimax as the climbers made their way back down the mountain, Strauss stirred up a raging storm complete with wind machine and thundersheet, enthusiastically delivered by the huge orchestra.

But between these striking moments, the hour-long work’s pace sagged a bit as some but not all of its 22 episodes (each given its own title in the score) came into focus, and difficulties with ensemble and intonation crept in. The work’s quiet closing pages gave an all-too-real impression of fatigue, not the hiker’s glow of “good tired” that Strauss meant to evoke.

But whatever its strengths and shortcomings, this concert received a warm audience response for its Botsteinian mix of orchestral pieces, combining an assault on a peak of the repertoire with exploration of less-visited valleys below.