The Chamber Orchestra's 50th anniversary

Dirk Brossé wrote his Philadelphia Overture five years ago to mark his first concert as the music director of the Chamber Orchestra. It’s a short piece that reflects his impressions of our city, and it captures the essence of our peculiar, underappreciated metropolis. It has lots of bustle, some quietly elegiac interludes, and a recurring background motif composed of chiming bells. I’ve now lived in Philadelphia for 61 years, and it’s nice to know a visitor from Belgium seems to share my feeling that I live in a busy, comfortable urban center, permanently ennobled by its role in the history of self-government.

The second item on the celebratory menu was the Toccata Festiva that Samuel Barber wrote for the unveiling of the organ Mary Louise Curtis Bok gave the Academy of Music in 1960. Mrs. Bok was thinking about financing a new hall for the Curtis Institute of Music, and Eugene Ormandy convinced her she should give the Philadelphia Orchestra a new organ instead.

The Toccata is a prime example of the creativity Barber brought to all his works. It shows off the organ with a wonderfully varied demonstration that it can play melodies, whistle tunes, and create somber moods, in addition to emitting big, monumental blasts.

Barber varied the organ part with some beautiful writing for a string orchestra, enhanced by kettledrums and the brilliance of a lone trumpet. Asked to write a pièce d'occasion, he produced a pièce de résistance.

Small size, bright sound

Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is normally associated with soberer moods. Its famous opening bars have become a musical cliché, burdened with comments about “fate knocking at the door” and references to Beethoven’s growing deafness. But those opening bars are only the beginning of a four movement epic. The symphony has become a popular favorite primarily because its last two movements are a parade of triumphant celebrations.

The Chamber Orchestra played the Fifth with an orchestra roughly the size of the orchestras Beethoven probably worked with, about 35 musicians in this case. Modern symphony orchestras field about 60, with all the extra musicians in the string sections. The brass and woodwinds set the mood when you reduce the strings, and the symphony sounds brighter and more stirring.

The fourth item on the program presented a different kind of celebration. Beethoven’s Triple Concerto teams the orchestra with a small chamber group — a trio of piano, violin, and cello. At this performance, the concerto enhanced the celebratory atmosphere by linking the present with the past. Brossé conducted; the Chamber Orchestra’s last music director, Ignat Solzhenitsyn, played the piano; and one of its most popular guests, Soovin Kim, played the violin part. The third member of the trio was a younger musician, cellist Marie-Elisabeth Hecker, but that was appropriate, too: In the last 11 years, Solzhenitsyn and Brossé have brought a parade of impressive young musicians to the Chamber Orchestra’s stage.

The Triple Concerto is one of Beethoven’s most emotional works, and Brossé drew an emotional performance from the orchestra. Soovin Kim played with his customary understanding, and Solzhenitsyn drew a spectrum of colors from the piano. Hecker proved she belonged on the same stage with her two partners the moment she initiated the autumnal cello song at the beginning of the second movement.

The Chamber Orchestra began its long history when Marc Mostovoy organized it as the Concerto Soloists in 1964. Mostovoy, who led it through its first 40 years, received well-deserved applause when he joined his successors on the stage. Many music organizations disappear when their founder retires, but Mostovoy created an organization that seems to have staying power.