Although Sejong is well known to regulars at the Aspen Music Festival, where it was in summer residence from 1996 through 2005, the New York-based string orchestra made just its second appearance in Denver on Wednesday evening.
Unfortunately, this performance, under the auspices of Friends of Chamber Music, delivered mixed results.
While it was hard to fault the enthusiasm and skill of the ensemble’s 15 members, including some surprisingly young faces, Sejong’s playing was often too safe and constrained. There was little in the way of interpretive flair.
That was especially true in the group’s lackluster version of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Prelude and Scherzo for String Octet, Op. 11. It lacked the intensity and grit that is so essential to this dark, frequently pained music, leaving much of the work’s emotional depth untouched.
Another drawback was the program, which had too many desserts and not enough meat. It was hard, for example, to understand the inclusion of Leopold Stokowski’s arrangement of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Air from the Overture No. 3 in D.
While such romanticized versions of baroque works were in vogue during a good portion of the 20th century, this one only sounded sugary and strange to ears accustomed to the purity and clarity of now-widespread early-instrument performances.
It was also unclear why the group changed its program a few weeks before the concert, removing “Rounds” for String Orchestra (1944) by David Diamond, whose music is almost never heard in Denver. That would have injected a little jolt of adventure into the lineup.
The evening’s highlight was Argentine composer Astor Piazzola’s “Las cuatro estaciones portenas (The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires),” arranged in the 1990s for string ensemble by Leonid Desyatnikov.
Here, Sejong played with more freedom, capturing the propulsive thrust and sensuality of this tango-based music, with its earthy percussiveness and seductive slides and turns in the strings.
An appealing touch was using four different violinists as soloists. Each put a distinctive stamp on his or her section, but Ji In Yang stood out especially with her fire and focus.
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com
