Batch Society Orchestra

From Tison Street, soloist Sunday night in Bach's Violin Concerto in E major, one naturally expected a good job. Besides being an outstanding student of composition in the department of music, he has concertmaster of the Bach Society Orchestra since his senior year in high school. But Mr. Street showed himself not only competent to handle a treacherously difficult concerto; he and Bentley Layton's gem-like little orchestra, made the concerto exciting.

Mr.Street tore into the concerto's first movements, but controlled every note. At the ends of solos before orchestral returns, for example, he tapered and rounded each phrase. In the filler passages, he subordinated his line while conductor Layton searched for something interesting in the orchestra.

Mr. Street's tone stood more exposed in the large, placid second movement. There it sounded a little thin and tired, and even sagged below proper pitch a bit, But a brilliant third movement, displaying Mr. Street's really startling techniques, resuscitated the work.

The excitement of the Batch concerto enlivened the concluding Mozart Symphony 29 in A Major, K. 201. Delicate and graceful, the strings were also plump in the right spots; and the horn solos of Glen Sproul put muscle behind the piece's fair complexion.

In this fine little concert, conductor Layton fulfilled the promise of his first performance this fall, and happily Paine Hall was nearly full. Perhaps now he can bring his orchestra back to the twentieth century for a while, and still get the full house he and the orchestra deserve.