CSO makes it work

The downsized Charleston Symphony Orchestra offered all the "Sonic Splendour" required for Saturday night's so-named Masterworks concert in Gaillard Municipal Auditorium.

With an orchestral size of 43, conductor David Stahl drew out the best melodic themes and vivid aural representations of Edvard Grieg's incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's play "Peer Gynt," by way of the four movement "Suite No. 1."

Soloist Karin Bliznik, the orchestra's principal trumpet currently on leave with the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, dazzled with Joseph Haydn's ornate "Trumpet Concerto in E-Flat Major," one of the great virtuoso pieces from the classic era.

Stahl sensitively led the orchestra, providing great ensemble accompaniment for Bliznik and an elegant recognition of the composer's style.

By the time for the main work, Felix Mendelssohn's "Symphony No. 3 (Scottish)," the orchestra was down to 37 players.

The orchestra was grand in its response to Stahl's leadership in this astonishing and evocative symphony. With urgency and serenity mixed in this icon of the romantic era, Stahl and his musicians drew a standing ovation, as had Bliznik in the Haydn earlier.

The orchestra was moved forward in the shell, with placement of the strings on the apron stage in front of the proscenium arch, adding greatly to the ensemble's fullness of sound. However, the dearth of strings (six first and five second violins, for example) caused some of that music to be lost in the more heavily scored sections.