CAPE MAY — With the embarrassment of musical riches offered by the Cape May Music Festival it gets harder and harder to choose which are the must-see programs. We would like to take in the whole festival, but that would entail taking up residence in Cape May for the duration and neglecting the myriad cultural events taking place throughout the county.
We enjoyed the opening concert featuring the music of Schubert, Haydn and Ravel, but in checking the schedule we found the May 29 program was irresistible. We are a pushover for the music of Mozart and Richard Strauss.
The concert also was the first appearance of the Cape May Festival Orchestra under Maestro Stephen Rogers Radcliffe, so we really had no choice but to repair to Cape May’s Convention Hall and be transported by the music of the masters.
Not only were we to hear some works by our favorite composers but to hear the orchestra in the kind of thing that it does best — “O were it paradise enough!”
It was actually the festival orchestra’s first showing in Cape May’s Convention Hall and, furthermore, we were informed by MAC officials Michael Zuckerman and Mary Stewart that next year the entire festival will be held at the hall.
There have been past complaints about the quality of the acoustics in the hall, but a much improved sound system seems to have corrected the situation. The program was recorded for delayed broadcast on National Public Radio as was the opening show at the Cape Island Baptist Church.
The Cape May Music Festival is reaching the pinnacle of national recognition with the kind of quality programming they do best.
Stephen Rogers Radcliffe’s homecoming appearance was as spectacular and as warmly received as you would expect. Radcliffe’s reputation as a conductor is getting widespread attention simply because he is a topnotch practitioner of his profession. He is animated but not so kinetic as the late Dmitri Mitropoulos who frequently threw himself off the podium in a frenzy of enthusiasm and broke some major bones.
Radcliffe is precise but never rigid, and his players are never left in doubt as to his intentions. He defines the word leadership.
Wednesday night’s program was entirely one of music by composers from Vienna or its immediate environs. The city on the banks of the Danube has produced a long list of exceptional composers.
Brahms put it succinctly when he wrote that “The air is so full of melodies that one must be careful not to step on them” when writing about a walk in the Ringstrasse.
Mozart, who made Prague almost as famous, provided the first part of the musical menu. Radcliffe provided a lively reading of the Nozze di Figaro overture.
Marcia Butler, principal clarinet of the Festival orchestra, performed and recorded with musicians of international stature, gave an accurate and free and joyous interpretation of the score. She entered the spirit of the music with her movements as well as her spirited playing.
This exposition of the composers’ art in his old age was followed by Daniel Grabois’ interpretation of the youthful Strauss’ *Horn Concerto No. 1 in E-flat, Mr. Grabois has played with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and other major organizations and currently is on the Princeton University faculty.
He is eminently qualified to play the piece which daunted the composer’s horn virtuoso father to the degree that the two didn’t speak for years. It was this composition and the horn solo in Till Eulenspiegel that prompted the father to accuse his son of attempted fratricide.
Grabois was more than equal to the task. He was especially effective in the fiendishly difficult allegro con brio movement. In both selections the orchestra under Radcliffe’s busy baton gave ideal support.
Intermission was followed by a major work by Franz Schubert. Radcliffe introduced it with self-effacing good humor. Schubert, who was one of the progenitors of the romantic movement, was always melodic and never repetitious.
His work is like a great meal. It is satisfying but leaves a little corner of appetite for a little more. Certain other composers could have benefited by making their writing more compact.
Musical composition is like a sermon. If you can’t get it across within the limits of allotted time, it’s not worth saying. Come to think of it, The Cape May Music Festival is apparently aware of this dictum. No one ever wonders “when will this thing end” during one of their presentations.
That’s why the audience, having attended a CMMF concert, is forever hooked, no matter how bad the weather or great the distance involved.
— Ed Wismer
![Sunday, Feb. 2, 2003 Sioux City Journal Vol. 139 No. 150 • Sioux City, Iowa • METRO EDITION Beethoven performed in seemless fashion during symphony concert By Bruce R. Miller Journal staff writer [REVIEW] At Saturday's Sioux City Symphony concert, pianist Ursula Oppens did what so many guest artists don't. She listened. Throughout Beethoven's Piano Concerto in E-Flat Major, Opus 73, Oppens complemented what the resident musicians did; she didn't just expect them to keep up with her. The result was a seamless performance that must have been as exciting for the orchestra as it was for the audience. Ironically, the piece was one Beethoven wrote after he had lost his hearing. Filled with rapid runs, it could have been a "look at me" turn for the two-time Grammy winner. Instead, Oppens played as if she had been a member of the orchestra for years. Slipping into the stormy duel between the cellos and the violins, she gave the work the understated surprise it needed. In the second movement, she created the piano equivalent of Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, a fluid aria that got Oppens to embrace the piano and dig into the music's very definite structure. She even nodded her head in ways that suggested the fire of the work's creator. Because the orchestra and the guest artist were so well matched, heat seemed to rise from the stage. In truth, the building's thermostat was set a bit high. But the musicians could have melted ice with their performance. Unfortunately, the first ("Overture to Fidelio") and last (Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Opus 92) offerings didn't have as much heat as the centerpiece. The timpanist was challenged on both, but overwhelmed in the former, impressed in the latter. The oboes got a chance to solo in the symphony as well. But this was really a night for strings. In all three selections, the pace was intense. The workout was a good one. While the overture wasn't as memorable as it could have been, it made the concerto all the more special. The symphony, as a result, was a bit of a let-down, even though it asked more of its players and reeked of the familiar. There were sections that have been lifted for film scores, movements that have served as inspiration for others (including Schubert). The play "Amadeus" made much of Mozart's excess ("too many notes, the royal said). But Beethoven insisted every one he put on paper was important. When the symphony was performed in 1813, Mozart's old nemesis Antonio Salieri led the percussion section. It's easy to see the necessity of every melody, counter-melody and beat. The stuff works because it's so intricate. One look at conductor Stephen Rogers Radcliffe revealed as much. He got the best exercise of all. And he enjoyed the perks of a guest performer who wasn't around for the glory. She was there for the workout, too.](https://stephenrogersradcliffe.com/wp-content/uploads/jupiterx/images/2003_02_02_Sioux_City_Journal_Feb_2_2003-scaled-6393e69.jpg)
![Sunday, Feb. 2, 2003 Sioux City Journal Vol. 139 No. 150 • Sioux City, Iowa • METRO EDITION Beethoven performed in seemless fashion during symphony concert By Bruce R. Miller Journal staff writer [REVIEW] At Saturday's Sioux City Symphony concert, pianist Ursula Oppens did what so many guest artists don't. She listened. Throughout Beethoven's Piano Concerto in E-Flat Major, Opus 73, Oppens complemented what the resident musicians did; she didn't just expect them to keep up with her. The result was a seamless performance that must have been as exciting for the orchestra as it was for the audience. Ironically, the piece was one Beethoven wrote after he had lost his hearing. Filled with rapid runs, it could have been a "look at me" turn for the two-time Grammy winner. Instead, Oppens played as if she had been a member of the orchestra for years. Slipping into the stormy duel between the cellos and the violins, she gave the work the understated surprise it needed. In the second movement, she created the piano equivalent of Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, a fluid aria that got Oppens to embrace the piano and dig into the music's very definite structure. She even nodded her head in ways that suggested the fire of the work's creator. Because the orchestra and the guest artist were so well matched, heat seemed to rise from the stage. In truth, the building's thermostat was set a bit high. But the musicians could have melted ice with their performance. Unfortunately, the first ("Overture to Fidelio") and last (Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Opus 92) offerings didn't have as much heat as the centerpiece. The timpanist was challenged on both, but overwhelmed in the former, impressed in the latter. The oboes got a chance to solo in the symphony as well. But this was really a night for strings. In all three selections, the pace was intense. The workout was a good one. While the overture wasn't as memorable as it could have been, it made the concerto all the more special. The symphony, as a result, was a bit of a let-down, even though it asked more of its players and reeked of the familiar. There were sections that have been lifted for film scores, movements that have served as inspiration for others (including Schubert). The play "Amadeus" made much of Mozart's excess ("too many notes, the royal said). But Beethoven insisted every one he put on paper was important. When the symphony was performed in 1813, Mozart's old nemesis Antonio Salieri led the percussion section. It's easy to see the necessity of every melody, counter-melody and beat. The stuff works because it's so intricate. One look at conductor Stephen Rogers Radcliffe revealed as much. He got the best exercise of all. And he enjoyed the perks of a guest performer who wasn't around for the glory. She was there for the workout, too.](https://stephenrogersradcliffe.com/wp-content/uploads/2003/02/2003_02_02_Sioux_City_Journal_Feb_2_2003-791x1024.jpg)
![Sioux City Journal April 12, 1998 Orchestra presents monumental symphony in ‘The Resurrection’ By Judi Hazlett Journal staff writer [Review] There may be bigger orchestras performing Mahler in bigger cities, but you’ll have to look long and hard to find any that will beat what happened right here in Sioux City Saturday night. It was a monumental musical event as the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra played a monumental symphony. Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, "The Resurrection," is a work of gigantic imagination and creativity in itself, but performing it takes on superhuman proportions. For the orchestra, its length and challenges loom large. Logistically, to get a huge orchestra on the stage at Eppley Auditorium, plus a huge chorus, two soloists and the conductor takes more than just a bit of doing. But the SCSO did it — with lots of style, class and panache, thanks to music director and conductor Stephen Rogers Radcliffe. He kept everything together in a performance that was sustained and deliberate, through the revealing slow and soft parts as well as the Mahler "tornadoes" that whirl everything up and around, then just as quickly suspend you in the storm’s peaceful center before whirling you around some more. Radcliffe never rushed it, but kept it unfolding and growing right into the magnificent finale of the fifth movement. That’s when the meaning of the word resurrection hits home. Out of Mahler’s beginning first movement — a funeral march — themes move through four more movements with moments depicting earthly bliss, turmoil, despair, mourning and the ever-present specter of death. Finally, Mahler realizes death can be transcendent, which, as Radcliffe pointed out, makes this symphony an appropriate one for the resurrection of Christ celebrated by Christians at Easter. The fourth movement introduces a solo voice but the fifth movement pulls out all the stops. It featured knockout performances by mezzo soprano Lucille Beer and soprano Sara Seglem as soloists. Their voices were added to the smooth, full vocalizations of the combined voices of the Siouxland Master Chorale, directed by Gregory Fuller; the Northwestern College Choir, directed by Kimberly Utke; the Wayne State College Choir, directed by David Lawrence; and the Siouxland Community Chorus, directed by Shirley Neugebauer-Luebke. As good as this all was, the evening really belonged to the orchestra, which underwent a resurrection of its own with Saturday’s performance. The musicians play almost every minute of the two and a half hour work, and work it is. Kudos to the brass and horns, which were brilliant, and the strings for providing the glue. Clearly there are the resources here for big works like this.](https://stephenrogersradcliffe.com/wp-content/uploads/jupiterx/images/1998_04_12_Sioux_City_Journal_April_12_1998-scaled-ad2ddd4.jpg)
![Sioux City Journal April 12, 1998 Orchestra presents monumental symphony in ‘The Resurrection’ By Judi Hazlett Journal staff writer [Review] There may be bigger orchestras performing Mahler in bigger cities, but you’ll have to look long and hard to find any that will beat what happened right here in Sioux City Saturday night. It was a monumental musical event as the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra played a monumental symphony. Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, "The Resurrection," is a work of gigantic imagination and creativity in itself, but performing it takes on superhuman proportions. For the orchestra, its length and challenges loom large. Logistically, to get a huge orchestra on the stage at Eppley Auditorium, plus a huge chorus, two soloists and the conductor takes more than just a bit of doing. But the SCSO did it — with lots of style, class and panache, thanks to music director and conductor Stephen Rogers Radcliffe. He kept everything together in a performance that was sustained and deliberate, through the revealing slow and soft parts as well as the Mahler "tornadoes" that whirl everything up and around, then just as quickly suspend you in the storm’s peaceful center before whirling you around some more. Radcliffe never rushed it, but kept it unfolding and growing right into the magnificent finale of the fifth movement. That’s when the meaning of the word resurrection hits home. Out of Mahler’s beginning first movement — a funeral march — themes move through four more movements with moments depicting earthly bliss, turmoil, despair, mourning and the ever-present specter of death. Finally, Mahler realizes death can be transcendent, which, as Radcliffe pointed out, makes this symphony an appropriate one for the resurrection of Christ celebrated by Christians at Easter. The fourth movement introduces a solo voice but the fifth movement pulls out all the stops. It featured knockout performances by mezzo soprano Lucille Beer and soprano Sara Seglem as soloists. Their voices were added to the smooth, full vocalizations of the combined voices of the Siouxland Master Chorale, directed by Gregory Fuller; the Northwestern College Choir, directed by Kimberly Utke; the Wayne State College Choir, directed by David Lawrence; and the Siouxland Community Chorus, directed by Shirley Neugebauer-Luebke. As good as this all was, the evening really belonged to the orchestra, which underwent a resurrection of its own with Saturday’s performance. The musicians play almost every minute of the two and a half hour work, and work it is. Kudos to the brass and horns, which were brilliant, and the strings for providing the glue. Clearly there are the resources here for big works like this.](https://stephenrogersradcliffe.com/wp-content/uploads/1998/04/1998_04_12_Sioux_City_Journal_April_12_1998-791x1024.jpg)
![The Philadelphia Inquirer Saturday, June 14, 1997 Review: Music Cape May Festival adds music to the Shore mix By Daniel Webster INQUIRER MUSIC CRITIC Climate, culture, commerce: That was the formula laid out Thursday by New Jersey state arts council spokesman David Miller in his preface to the concert by the Cape May Festival Orchestra. Miller called the festival a model of what can happen when a resort community adds the arts to its traditional mix of sun and beachfront games. The concert, coming midway in a season that begins in late May and runs through June 29, brought around 250 vacationers into Cape May's Convention Hall to sit on folding chairs to hear music by Stravinsky, Beethoven and Mendelssohn. Artistic director Stephen Rogers Radcliffe noted that the eight-year-old festival was designed as a boost to the "shoulder season," the early beach weeks before sun and water temperature guarantee full hotels. Radcliffe's musical forces are built around his New York Chamber Ensemble, which performs as an entity and whose players function as principals amid the young professionals who fill out the festival orchestra. In the course of the festival's history, a stage shell has been installed and some reflecting panels placed in the ceiling in an effort to focus the acoustics. More panels would help, but the hall was not designed as a musical setting, and Radcliffe sees adapting to the hall as one of the experiences helpful to his young players. His program balanced popular favorites — Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 and Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto — with Stravinsky's tangy Dances Concertantes. He guided the orchestra through Stravinsky's laconic metric scheme with admirable poise. The performance preserved the irony of this gloss on conventional ballet writing while solo players injected dots of sound and theatrical melodic fragments. The winds and brass have an advantage in this hall, but in Stravinsky, their prominence was both welcome and vital. Violinist Corey Cerovsek was soloist in Mendelssohn's concerto. Steering clear of the staginess that has become a kind of norm with this piece, Cerovsek put his considerable virtuosity to musical ends. He shaded phrases, touched lightly some of the sweeps — like those opening the final movement — and found delicacy in writing that often sounds like shouting. The inner colors in his playing of the middle movement drew similar playing from the orchestra in this fresh reading. Audience response led Cerovsek to play a Kreisler nugget in which virtuosity again was bent to the task of mining the musical depth of the piece. After all that, the Beethoven symphony, played by an ensemble similar in size to those of Beethoven's time, sounded young, alert and a little brash. [Photo Caption] Stephen Rogers Radcliffe is the festival's artistic director. [Boxed Text] Cape May Music Festival Stephen Rogers Radcliffe conducts various programs in the festival, at Convention Hall, Cape May, through June 29. Information: 609-884-5404.](https://stephenrogersradcliffe.com/wp-content/uploads/jupiterx/images/1997_06_15_Philadelphia_Inquirer_June_14_1997-scaled-3d1ac6f.jpg)
![The Philadelphia Inquirer Saturday, June 14, 1997 Review: Music Cape May Festival adds music to the Shore mix By Daniel Webster INQUIRER MUSIC CRITIC Climate, culture, commerce: That was the formula laid out Thursday by New Jersey state arts council spokesman David Miller in his preface to the concert by the Cape May Festival Orchestra. Miller called the festival a model of what can happen when a resort community adds the arts to its traditional mix of sun and beachfront games. The concert, coming midway in a season that begins in late May and runs through June 29, brought around 250 vacationers into Cape May's Convention Hall to sit on folding chairs to hear music by Stravinsky, Beethoven and Mendelssohn. Artistic director Stephen Rogers Radcliffe noted that the eight-year-old festival was designed as a boost to the "shoulder season," the early beach weeks before sun and water temperature guarantee full hotels. Radcliffe's musical forces are built around his New York Chamber Ensemble, which performs as an entity and whose players function as principals amid the young professionals who fill out the festival orchestra. In the course of the festival's history, a stage shell has been installed and some reflecting panels placed in the ceiling in an effort to focus the acoustics. More panels would help, but the hall was not designed as a musical setting, and Radcliffe sees adapting to the hall as one of the experiences helpful to his young players. His program balanced popular favorites — Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 and Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto — with Stravinsky's tangy Dances Concertantes. He guided the orchestra through Stravinsky's laconic metric scheme with admirable poise. The performance preserved the irony of this gloss on conventional ballet writing while solo players injected dots of sound and theatrical melodic fragments. The winds and brass have an advantage in this hall, but in Stravinsky, their prominence was both welcome and vital. Violinist Corey Cerovsek was soloist in Mendelssohn's concerto. Steering clear of the staginess that has become a kind of norm with this piece, Cerovsek put his considerable virtuosity to musical ends. He shaded phrases, touched lightly some of the sweeps — like those opening the final movement — and found delicacy in writing that often sounds like shouting. The inner colors in his playing of the middle movement drew similar playing from the orchestra in this fresh reading. Audience response led Cerovsek to play a Kreisler nugget in which virtuosity again was bent to the task of mining the musical depth of the piece. After all that, the Beethoven symphony, played by an ensemble similar in size to those of Beethoven's time, sounded young, alert and a little brash. [Photo Caption] Stephen Rogers Radcliffe is the festival's artistic director. [Boxed Text] Cape May Music Festival Stephen Rogers Radcliffe conducts various programs in the festival, at Convention Hall, Cape May, through June 29. Information: 609-884-5404.](https://stephenrogersradcliffe.com/wp-content/uploads/1997/06/1997_06_15_Philadelphia_Inquirer_June_14_1997-791x1024.jpg)
