CIM Orchestra impresses with Rossini, Rachmaninoff

Posted by Donald Rosenberg September 20, 2007 13:09PM

Categories: Music

REVIEW
CIM Orchestra
Severance Hall, Cleveland
Wednesday, Sept. 19

Donald Rosenberg
Plain Dealer Music Critic

It's always instructive to take an early listen. Someday, for example, more than a few students at the Cleveland Institute of Music will take their places in major American and foreign ensembles, including the Cleveland Orchestra, just as they have in the past.

The CIM Orchestra's season-opening concert Wednesday at Severance Hall once again provided hope for the future. Led by Carl Topilow, the young musicians acquitted themselves with equal degrees of refinement and energy. Not everything was perfect -- but then, even top orchestras experience tentative moments.

So much of the artistry Wednesday honored the program's composers that the enthusiastic -- if also cell-phone- and candy-wrapper-challenged -- audience could sit back and absorb music-making of intense commitment. Topilow began with Rossini's overture to "The Barber of Seville," every bar of which he and the orchestra infused with lean, articulate intelligence.

Never mind that Bugs Bunny made a cherishable frolic of the piece. As shaped with high style by Topilow and played to the Rossinian skies, the overture's delicious wit and momentum, including deftly gauged crescendos, registered on their blissful own.

The privilege of appearing as a soloist on this occasion went to Chaoyin Cai, a master's degree student at the institute and recent winner of the CIM concerto competition. Her vehicle was one of the most beloved keyboard scores of them of all, Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2, with its swooning melodies and acrobatic fireworks.

Cai brought ample tonal allure and sure technique to the solo part. She could always be heard, and her playing balanced taste with vigor. There were times when Cai rushed ahead of the orchestra, prompting a bit of catch-up by Topilow and company. If a bit more space in lyrical passages would have been welcome, the pianist was an impeccable champion of Rachmaninoff's popular creation.

Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra also claims a firm place in the repertoire. It is an ideal forum for musicians to show their ensemble and soloistic stuff, with five movements of beguiling thematic material, rhythmic puzzles and colors to test an orchestra's finesse and power.

Topilow led an impressive performance, despite some meters that needed crisper definition. The various instrumental sections seized the chance to dig into Bartok's Hungarian-doused inventiveness and savor the eerie or exuberant atmospheres.

The bassoons chatted to marvelous effect in the second movement, the strings flew easily in the breathless episodes, and the brasses were brilliant or noble as Bartok requested. At the score's most blazing moments, every corner of Severance was filled to the sonic brim.