Macabre music

This year, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra knew how to celebrate Halloween. Given a program of macabre but Romantic repertoire standards, the third season-appearance of the new ISO music director, an excitingly familiar young violin virtuoso and a modicum of “presentation art,” the Hilbert Circle Theatre was more filled last Friday than the classical series has typically seen throughout September and October.

Corey Cerovsek played macabre music with the ISO last weekend.

Mario Venzago glided toward the podium, accompanied by 31-year-old Corey Cerovsek (having an IU doctorate in both music and mathematics), to begin the “show” with the celebrated Danse Macabre of Camille Saint-Saëns. English hornist Roger Roe provided an appropriately sinister narrative à la veteran Indy TV ghoulist Sammy Terry, introducing each offering with the stage lights dimmed.

Though Danse Macabre’s prominent violin solos are ordinarily played by an orchestra’s concertmaster, Cerovsek relocated twice during Danse’s course: from upstage-right to upstage-left to floor-level in front of the audience. Were his relaxed peripatetics meant to symbolize an element of the piece? I wasn’t sure.

The orchestrated version of Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz No. 1 came next — in its way less colorful than the composer’s ensuing solo piano version, with keyboard virtuosity so much Liszt’s second nature.

Cerovsek then rejoined Venzago and his players for the final movement of Nicolò Paganini’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in B Minor, Op. 7 (1827), entitled “La Campanella” or “The Bell.” Cerovsek easily, if not quite perfectly, negotiated all the composer’s humongously difficult obstacles. The audience also had a catchy tune to follow — rather than the often banal gesturing one hears so often from this early Italian violin virtuoso/composer, one who conjured to his audiences images of the “devil” during his lifetime.

Next came Rimsky-Korsakov’s familiar Night on Bald Mountain, “chillingly” rendered by Venzago and the orchestra. Though Mussorgsky is typically credited as its composer, the latter’s original version is only recognizable from its opening bars and its main theme, the rest being a wildly discordant prophecy of 20th century technique. If Rimsky hadn’t completely rewritten it in 1886, following Mussorgsky’s death, the piece would have remained a fringe curiosity.

Cerovsek returned for Ravel’s Gypsy display piece, Tzigane for Violin and Orchestra — well-known to Indianapolis Violin Competition faithfuls. Frankly, the Canadian native failed to handle his extended opening solo with as much tonal mastery as did last year’s competition finalist, Susie Park.

Perhaps Cerovsek was on performance overload: He appeared one more time for another fiery virtuosic display with Henri Wieniawski’s Scherzo-Tarantelle, Op. 16, his fourth soloist piece of the evening. His tone tended toward wobbliness throughout the concert. If this was thematically intentional, it was ill considered: Let the writing convey the sinister; always play as beautifully as you’re capable.

Venzago capped the program with The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (1897), Paul Dukas’ one claim to fame. It was also conductor and ensemble’s best wrought, best played piece of the evening. Venzago’s extreme tempo variance between soft and loud proved quite effective — once again bringing an exciting new perspective to a concert staple.