Review: DSSO guest conductor, chorus keep ‘Inspirations’ energy high
November 20, 2011 at 6:00 pm in Duluth News Tribune
Judging by audience response, Saturday night’s program by the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra, “Divine Inspirations,” was a tremendously pleasing event. Continue Reading
I have enjoyed the DSSO for the last 20 years, but never more than Saturday night…I left with a renwed enthusiasm for symphonic music. The talk in the lobby and on the bus was electric with excitement. Onward!
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I have learned from experience that just about every DSSO review this Samuel Black writes is pure nonsense. One would think he was on the payroll of the DSSO to write glowing reviews. A critic is supposed to be critical, I thought. After reading his reviews you would imagine we had the New York Philharmonic or Chicago Symphony right here in Duluth. The glowing reviews he gives (particularly of the brass) are pure moonshine. The only way you can consider the DSSO brass to be any good is 1) you have never heard orchestras that actually are good play these pieces or, 2) this is the first time you’ve heard the piece and you don’t know how the piece is supposed to sound. The horns are at times laughably bad. The first horn hardly ever can play the most famous solos with anything approaching confidence, and almost always cracks notes. I often feel embarrassed for them. The trombone section is incredibly weak. When a Tchaikovsky piece calls for FFFF dynamic markings you would imagine that they would be blowing their brains off like Charlie Vernon and crew but they were VERY underpowered. Bass trombone played the low F’s at the end of Pines of Rome about as weak as I have heard them. Tuba player has an abysmal sound (prokofiev 5 was so out of tune it was incredible). Trumpets are the only section that is consistently decent and at times inspiring (Mahler 5, first trumpet playing was nice). If Samuel Black was an honest critic you would know all of this from his reviews, but he never says anything close to this.
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To anonymous: I can tell you that Mr. Black is not an employee of the DSSO and what he writes is his opinion of the concert. I disagree that reviews need to be critical, they should be honest to the reviewers opinions. On the other hand, if you were in the audience, you noticed that the DSSO is not filling the house. With a review as you suggest, they would sell even less tickets with people thinking that the DSSO sucks and why waste their money. OK, the DSSO is not the Chicago Symphony or the New York Phil – but what do you really expect? We’re in Duluth, a third of the orchestra commutes to Duluth to play and the pay is so low that they have a hard time attracting great players who play in the aforementioned orchestras at $100K+ per year.
You’ve conveniently hidden your identity, but if you love classical music, as it seems you must, then I would challenge you to make some constructive criticisms to the leaders of the DSSO and help support them in building a better orchestra. I will tell you that I am not Sam Black, I am a musician in the DSSO string section. There are no ‘ffff’s in any brass part of the Tchaikovsky, only one ‘fff’ and a lot of ‘ff’. Some of what you say has validity, but as far as playing loud – I was on-stage that night and my ears were ringing afterwards because of how loud they were playing.
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