RALEIGH -- Thursday night's N.C. Symphony concert in Memorial Hall was entirely mainstream: Bach, Mendelssohn and Schumann. But guest conductor Timothy Myers' youthful verve made the familiar pieces seem fresh and alive.
Well-established locally for his work with the Opera Company of North Carolina, Myers is building an impressive résumé of performances with orchestras from Palm Beach to Jerusalem and opera companies from Anchorage to Johannesburg. Although in his mid-30s, he still appears impossibly young on the podium. But once he gives the downbeat, there's no doubt about the outcome. Nothing is exaggerated or over-interpreted; everything is precise and animated.
Myers gave Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3 appropriate grandeur in the overture, balanced by the sprightly joy of the three dance movements. The famous second movement melody ("Air on a G String") floated along in a lovely perpetual motion-like progression.
There's nothing much more familiar than Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, but here it seemed almost a new work, in no small part due to soloist Kurt Nikkanen. His manner was not showy or extroverted, his style admirably straightforward and intimate.
He took the first movement at a relatively fast clip, buoying the piece along but never rushing it. He caressed numerous phrases, often ending in breathtaking pianissimos, yet supplied ample, deep-toned vigor to climatic passages.
The second movement had quiet intensity; not overly emotional, yet moving nonetheless. Nikkanen's fleet effortlessness made the last movement effervescent, exciting in its quickening build to the final flourishes. Others may have applied more "personality" to this piece, but Nikkanen allowed the music itself to take center stage. Myers was with him all the way, the first movement crisply rhythmic, the second gently undulating, and the third nimbly mercurial.
Exhibiting another confident switch in styles, Myers led a spacious, robust reading of Schumann's Symphony No. 3. Dubbed the "Rhenish" for its impressions of the German river, the rousing first movement suggests a sunny cruise on rushing waters, the second a calmer meandering, the third a stop for a leisurely picnic.
Myers was especially effective in the fourth movement's depiction of the Cologne Cathedral's massive majesty and the fifth's exuberant peasant festival. The orchestra, particularly the entire brass section, was in magnificent form.
