Concluding its Classics series for the season, the New Mexico Symphony
Orchestra this weekend brought guest conductor Steven Smith to the stage of
Popejoy Hall along with piano soloist Terrance Wilson . Originally Wilson had
been slated to perform a Prokofiev concerto, giving more credence to the concert
title "Russian Brilliance," but instead was asked for some Mozart by concert
sponsors. Instead the Mozart Concerto No. 21 in C (K. 467), one of the most
popular and frequently played of that genre, was paired with the Symphony No. 5
by Shostakovich. The two halves of the program could not have been more
disparate in mood.

Steven Smith is well-known to New Mexico audiences as the Music Director of the
Santa Fe Symphony, and as many of the NMSO players are also members of the other
orchestra, this constituted a reunion of sorts. Smith has always impressed me
for his intelligent and lucid interpretations and this concert proved no
exception.

A Julliard graduate, Wilson brings to his instrument a robust enthusiasm and
energy coupled with solid technique. Glistening passagework and pristine
rhythmic figures characterized the performance bursting with vitality, yet
without the slightest hint of exaggeration of style. Smith preferred to take the
tempos generally on the brisk side and Wilson responded without any loss of
detail. There seemed a genuine camaraderie between the two. The middle movement
Andante, now forever called the "Elvira Madigan" movement for its use in the
impressionist film, was filled with sensual textures and luxurious sense of
line. A genuine playfulness characterized the final Allegro with Wilson spinning
forth trails of notes as smooth as pouring oil.

Throughout his career Shostakovich toiled under the watchful eye of government
censorship, just as did Hollywood film directors in the 1930s, even up into the
60s. Which is not to say there weren't some masterpieces produced in either
case. Indeed, the Russians wrote some of the most often-played works of the 20th
century. Shostakovich 's Fifth Symphony, written in 1937, was described, perhaps
ironically, as "a Soviet artist's reply to just criticism." The result being
that the work contains little if any of the "abstract experimentation" the
composer had employed in earlier works.

Masterfully Smith held together the massive, slow-moving textures of the
opening Moderato. The Allegretto by contrast proved a study in gaudy color in
this bizarre, surrealistic satire of a waltz.

The great climaxes of the Largo are not cathartic but introspective in this
intensely emotional and undoubtedly personal experience, closing almost in
contradiction on a major chord. The most optimistic of the four movements, the
final Allegro began in pure fire, blasting forth in mock triumph.

I found it amusing that Music Director Guillermo Figueroa couldn't stay
away from the concert. He could be found playing at the back of the first violin
section.

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