New York Classical Review

In classical music, the hits keep coming, often from unexpected directions. There’s one piece by Heitor Villa-Lobos that everybody knows, even if they can’t name it or the composer. And where would figure skating be without the tangos of Astor Piazzolla to drive the athletes to new heights? 

And, wonder of wonders, one of J.S. Bach’s most intellectually rigorous works has started coming at us from movies, commercials, even cartoons—and, Saturday night in Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, from Orpheus.

The New York-based chamber orchestra, conductorless since its founding in 1972, treated the audience to Villa-Lobos’s haunting Aria (Cantilena) from Bachianas Brasilieiras, No. 5, Piazzolla’s Vivaldi-inspired Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas, and, all dressed for the ball, Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations, in the fetching string-orchestra arrangement by Dmitry Sitkovetsky.

In fact, none of these pieces was originally for string orchestra, although the model for one of them, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, was—which helped explain the presence of a guest violinist, Stella Chen, playing Piazzolla’s fiery solos.

In any case, it was a big night for arrangers. John Krance was credited with recasting the Villa-Lobos piece, originally for soprano and eight cellos, for a full ensemble of strings, assigning the unforgettable wordless melody first to the violin section, then to a lone violin, and ultimately (where the singer would be humming) to muted violins.

In the impassioned middle section, where the singer would be declaiming a poem mostly on a single tone, the all-strings arrangement threw a spotlight on the lower instruments’ expressive accompaniment in descending phrases. Overall, Orpheus’s delicately colored performance enabled one to hear this familiar music in a whole new light.

The nickname for residents of Buenos Aires is “porteños,” and when Piazzolla wrote music featuring the violinist in his tango sextet, he alluded to Vivaldi’s famous violin concertos in the title, “The Porteño Four Seasons.”  On Saturday, violinist Chen’s daring leaps and flashing scales and figurations (driving the orchestral violins to feats of their own) may have been Vivaldi-inspired, but the whiplash rhythms and edgy attacks were pure tango.

For its part, the ensemble sharpened its down-bows to match the reedy bite of Piazzolla’s bandoneón and evoked the other instruments in his band with pizzicato, harmonics, and extended bowing and percussive techniques.

Glenn Gould’s best-selling recordings of the 1950s and 1980s greatly helped to popularize the “Goldberg” Variations on piano (as did Simone Dinnerstein’s 2007 recording for a new generation). Sitkovetsky’s 1995 recording with the New European Strings took things a step further, proving that a chamber arrangement for strings can not only work but work surprisingly well.

The transparency and vitality of Sitkovetsky’s recording were also virtues of Orpheus’s performance of his arrangement Saturday night. The group’s polished tone and synchronized ensemble were in every way admirable. Observing the way themes and motives traveled around the ensemble, particularly between the two violin sections (something one can’t do listening to a recording), enhanced one’s enjoyment of the music and its craftsmanship.

And yet one couldn’t escape a certain feeling of objectivity about the whole enterprise. A single performer has a point of view that is inescapable; an orchestra with a conductor likely reflects that person’s priorities; but a conductorless ensemble—whether it’s a violin-piano duo, a string quartet or a chamber orchestra—is challenged to come up with a performance that reflects a musical mind communicating with that of the listener. The unfathomable depths of the “Goldbergs” need a guide to take us through.

When you hear performers omitting repeats, as Orpheus did on Saturday, it can be a sign that the piece is going too long, and they’re worried they’ll lose the audience’s attention. But there is so much in this piece, that no performance of it should ever feel too long, not even the tragic Adagio, the bewilderingly chromatic Variation 15, which can feel like being trapped in a slough of depression. Maybe the desperation to escape is part of the meaning.

Orpheus, with pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii, will perform works by Beethoven, Brahms and Viet Cuong, 7 p.m. April 25 at Carnegie Hall. carnegiehall.org