UTAH VALLEY UNIVERSITY SYMPHONY, Ragan Theater, Utah Valley University, Dec. 3

This performance saved the best for last, so I’ll start there. The first time I heard the Dvorak cello concerto my own cello skills were still in embryotic form. I had the privilege of watching Yo-Yo Ma perform the masterwork, and I simply could not reconcile the input from my eyes and from my ears. I had no idea a cello was capable of such heights and such elasticity. This recent performance at Utah Valley University took me back to that first performance with Yo-Yo Ma; it was as if I were hearing the concerto for the first time – again.

The orchestra and soloist were far from perfect, but they were sincere. And credit must be given where credit is due: the soloist, Nicole Pinnell, is a perfectly capable cellist. By and large she played with force and precision. She had a slight tendency to rush the arpeggio passages, and occasionally she would have to slide around until she found the right note. But given the enormity of the concerto, all of these minor shortcomings are perfectly understandable.

The Dvorak cello concerto is a leviathan of a piece, and it was a treat to hear it performed in such a small space. (The theater had only a dozen or so rows of seats.) I was able to distinctly hear parts I had previously been unaware of, especially in the winds. And the timpani sounded larger than life.

The rest of the concert, however, left much more to be desired. Under the baton of Donna Fairbanks, the performance began with two numbers performed by the chamber orchestra. The first was a suite for string orchestra, and the second was Bach’s Third Brandenburg Concerto. Both of these pieces started strong, but both disintegrated into cacophony at an alarming speed. The violins in particular struggled with the ornamental lines in the Bach.

But as soon as Reed Criddle took the podium, the mood changed. Suddenly the orchestra seemed to care about what they were playing, and the members were clearly and individually invested in the performance. The Brahms Hungarian dances were fun, but still sloppy. It wasn’t until they began to play the Dvorak that things really took a change. I was delighted to hear that concerto played so well in such an intimate setting. Although the venue and caliber of the performance were entirely different from when I first heard the piece years ago, I think I will always remember this performance for its own merits—its expansive soundscapes exploding in such a small space.