The Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra

The Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra ain't what she used to be. A century ago, according to the minutes in the Harvard Archive, the conductor needed to impress "on this Society the necessity of minding the pianos and fortes which have always been treated with more or less contempt in this Society." Not so Friday evening: Dr. Henry Swoboda, in his first Cambridge appearance, and a new, bigger-than-ever HRO, gave their audience the sight and sound of a professional symphony orchestra.

For one who had come to the concert expecting to hear an anemic student orchestra, the first five minutes of the performance were petrifying. The sound of Giannini's Frescobaldiana, which received its New England premiere Friday, rolled out bigger, smoother, and more controlled than anything we could remember the HRO emitting before. Difficult transitions--full orchestra dropping away to unveil a quartet of woodwinds--passed in untroubled succession. Massive string sections--nine violas and eleven cellos--luxuriated in lush tone. A fine solo on the English horn by Barbara Cohen introduced the second movement. And Swoboda provided the histrionics on the podium that are among the reasons for going to a good symphony orchestra.

After a while it appeared that Frescobaldiana was a dull piece and had absolutely nothing to do with evoking. Baroque organ works. So everyone politely ignored that and honestly enjoyed listening to the orchestra cavort.

Swoboda made up for the rather overwhelming Giannini with a clear, clean interpretation of Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony. Swoboda took the opening Allegro moderato at a leisurely, though defensible, tempo, modifying it as the music demanded. Michael Brenner, clarinet, and Barbara Cohen, oboe, reflected musical thoughtfulness and care in their solos opening and ending the second movement.

Zoltan Kodaly's Hary Janos Suite, best described as an interminable joke, constituted the second half of the concert. The suite recounts in six programmatic movements some tales of the Hungarian folk-hero Hary Janos, and is as much of a musical extravaganza as those tales were tall. "A magnificent orchestral sneeze"--a cross between an orchestra tuning and a radio warming up--opened the fairy tales. In the "Viennese Musical Clock," the percussion section went admirably wild; but the music beneath, no matter how heavily sugarcoated, tasted stale. The third movement, "Song," and the dance in the fifth, however, showed the better side of Kodaly's talents; in the third, the viola (Jean Quillen) played a delicate folk melody to a harpsichord accompaniment. The orchestra handled its end of the music superbly. Swoboda again put on a show, and the audience loved it.

Swoboda wisely chose a first program that was very gratifying to his players, as well as to his listeners. Frescobaldiana revelled in bombast, the Hary Janos Suite, in special effects; and the familiarity of Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony easily overcame any distractions which the excellence of the piece might have created. What they attempted, Swoboda and the HRO did with the greatest flair; what the audience now deserves is a program as musically ambitious as, say, last week's Bach Society concert. The forthcoming premiere of Frank Martin's choral work, in Sanders and in Carnegie Hall, indicates that Swoboda is swiftly moving in the right direction. With Friday's performance as a starting point, Swoboda and HRO give Cambridge its own professional orchestra.