Tuesday, March 2
PITTSFIELD - Going from Schoenberg to Beethoven by way of Saint-Sans and Vivaldi is like going from Pittsfield to Boston by way of Brattleboro and Hartford. You can get there from here but it isn't easy. Still, there was a certain logic in that musical itinerary when the Albany Symphony Orchestra traveled it Saturday afternoon. The program was built around the talents of the Parnas sisters, violinist Madalyn, 18, and cellist Cicely, 16, who were the soloists in pieces by Saint-Sans and Vivaldi. Schoenberg and Beethoven were chosen to complement them like their matching red gowns.

Schoenberg's " Transfigured Night" and Beethoven's Eighth Symphony have been played better before this and will be played better in the future. But it's hard do more with Saint-Sans' gooey "The Muse and the Poet" than these gifted soloists did with it. And if their performance of a Vivaldi double concerto ignored the crisp practices of the period- instrument movement, it was polished to a bright and energetic modern hue.

Music director David Alan Miller brought a nearly all-female chamber orchestra to Barrington Stage for the ensemble's second and last concert of a truncated Berkshire season. Comfortable as the theater is, for music its dry acoustics proved only a slight improvement over the similarly challenged sound in the Colonial Theatre, where the orchestra had played in the past.

Acoustics like these bring out every flaw in the playing

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and work against a blend among sections. The problems detracted from what otherwise would have been an effective performance of "Transfigured Night," Schoenberg's plunge into the late-romantic passion pit. The quieter sections wove a spell but when the playing rose to rapturous heights, it tended to turn wiry and out of tune.

The half-hour work, based on a poem by Richard Dehmel, follows the story of lovers who accept each other despite the woman's shame over her pregnancy by another man (how quaint!). Overheated as some of the writing might be, it has substance lacking in Saint-Sans' confection from the same period.

The program notes suggested that Saint-Sans' cello represents his writer, and the violin his muse. The Parnas sisters, who live across the state line in Stephentown, N.Y., could just as well have been gazelle and antelope, so thoroughly did they erase programmatic connotations with the suavity and assurance of their playing.

Perfectly attuned in musical ideas, the siblings also exchanged a harmony of glances, smiles and gestures. The orchestra doesn't have much to say in this unashamed showpiece, and Miller properly left the field to the soloists.

In the Vivaldi concerto, the sisters spun long, singing lines over his trademark chugging rhythms in a string orchestra. A brief andante found the paired instruments intertwining soulfully over a bare continuo accompaniment without any conductor's assistance.

The Beethoven Eighth was meant to continue the journey into older music and round off the program with a blast. The performance was faithful to the letter but many of Beethoven's bumptious jokes - the surprise accents, the ticking metronome, the rude intrusions by wind instruments - failed to come off. The playing felt more like work than fun.

An audience of about 100 answered the call to the unusual 3 p.m. start on a Saturday. The ASO needs to find a permanent home, possibly in south county, and expand its season if it hopes to build a sizable Berkshire audience. Meanwhile, the Parnas sisters, who are off to Indiana University and its highly regarded school of music in the fall, are real talents. There is nothing showy in their playing. Everything is for musical value, even when the value is slight, as in the case of Saint-Sans.