“The Florida Philharmonic’s opening concert of its Boca Raton series was not like the Fort Lauderdale series opener a few weeks ago, and Saturday night’s concertgoers came out ahead. A vitality that was missing in the earlier concert radiated from the stage of Florida Atlantic University’s Center Auditorium. It was due to the zeal of the man wielding the baton, resident conductor Paul Anthony McRae.
Both times McRae has been on the podium for this season’s Boca Raton series of the Florida Philharmonic have been successes, and the latest outdid the first. Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 in E minor was a ‘tour de force’ filled as it was with sweeping power. The Largo movement, based on the familiar American folk theme, is fraught with emotion, and under McRae’s baton it had a special beauty and serenity. The ever so restrained tempo, precision, and unyielding attention to an often whispering dynamic level, had a lot to do with it.
This symphony is full of suddenly shifting levels, and McRae, working without a score, took full advantage of them, tellingly combining sweep and power with marked restraint and nuances of phrasing. The orchestra responded extremely well to his direction.”
“Given the inescapable popularity of Respighi’s Roman Trilogy with American audiences, it seems incredible that Belkis had to wait 57 years before it received its first performances, and equally so that the event should have taken place, not in Philadelphia or Boston, but in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Certainly the February 23rd Respighi premiere was a rousing success, earning both orchestra and conductor the sort of ovation usually given, in Greensboro, only to superstar soloists.
The performance, obviously rehearsed to the teeth, was disciplined, passionate, and surprisingly lush. McRae has really come up with something here: sooner or later, one of the major-league orchestras is going to discover Belkis (and, one prays, retire at least two-thirds of the Roman Trilogy). Its audiences will go wild the way the Greensboro crowd did, and the piece is going to catch on nationally like a flu bug in February.”
“In many ways the Saturday Greensboro Symphony Orchestra concert was the epitome of a Paul Anthony McRae evening, both in terms of program and performance. The performance was the best overall offering by the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra to date.
From the fragile string lines, through the solos liberally distributed throughout the orchestra, to the final triumphant close – the playing was superb.”
“This was the third in their season of concerts in Boca Raton, the second under Paul Anthony McRae, and it served to show once again, that this orchestra depends entirely on its leadership for its results.
The evening opened with the Richard Strauss tone poem, Don Juan, a work which requires many aspects of the performance to succeed, and this was a remarkable success. McRae, working without a score, conducted this complex piece with praiseworthy clarity, precision and honesty. He created a huge space for his sound, and with that space was able to do justice to the dark and questioning design of the works emotion.
This was an outstanding performance by any standard.”
“It is a curious thing how many composers found particularly potent inspiration with the number five. The list includes Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and Fifth Piano Concerto; the Fifth Symphonies of Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Vaughn Williams and two Russians – Shostakovich and Prokofiev.
This week’s program by the Florida Philharmonic, under the baton of resident conductor, Paul Anthony McRae, includes the Prokofiev Fifth, a work born amid the unspeakable destruction of World War II, but imbued with what the composer called “the grandeur of the human spirit.” It is a towering achievement.
McRae demonstrated an admiral firmness of technical detail as he delved into the score’s dramatic heart. His phrasing was taut and characterful; his attention to dynamic contrast gave the music a propulsive edge.
The orchestra responded with some of its best playing of the season as there was a strong bite in the ensemble’s articulation and a well-balanced, cohesive sound.”