It has been an amazing month for symphonic music in Denver.
The Colorado Symphony ended its 2005-06 Masterworks Season with what might have been the best three-week series in the orchestra’s history: first-rate conducting, dazzling soloists and great music-making.
Culminating the offerings is this weekend’s set of concerts at Boettcher Concert Hall, featuring the last appearance of Marin Alsop as either music director or music director laureate.
Even before a short ceremony honoring her at the beginning of Friday evening’s concert could start, Alsop received a warm standing ovation.
It was a powerful and much-deserved tribute to her international standing in the music world and her many accomplishments in Denver.
The program’s main event was a stirring performance of Johannes Brahms’ “A German Requiem,” Op. 45, which does not follow the traditional Catholic Mass for the dead but incorporates biblical texts chosen by the composer. It celebrates life as much as it mourns death.
The work was an appropriate choice. Brahms is Alsop’s favorite composer, and she has an affinity for his music, as she amply demonstrated in this finely hewn interpretation. At the same time, she has a talent for handling large-scale works, and that skill was once again on display here.
The two soloists – soprano Janice Chandler-Eteme and bass-baritone Christopher Feigum – turned in solid performances, and the orchestra was in good form. But what really stood out was the terrific Colorado Symphony Chorus.
The singers delivered all the power one could want in the big, dramatic sections, but more striking was the nobility and nuance they brought to this work, which can achieve surprising intimacy.
Alsop prefaced the requiem with Samuel Barber’s “Knoxville: Summer of 1915,” Op. 24. Its mournful, reflective quality set just the right tone for what was to follow.
The concert will be repeated at 2:30 p.m. today.
