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Crowds wandered in and sprinkled the tiered seats of Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall on Saturday, May 10, settling into their blue seats, preparing to feel immersed in ocean sounds. The evening was a kickoff of a three-day run of Oregon Symphony’s Impressions of the Sea, a four-part performance built around Claude Debussy’s La mer, and a featured performance by solo violinist Paul Huang, helmed by conductor Jun Märkl.
The orchestra players warmed their instruments, a light cacophonous sound of bees buzzing rose as strings swarmed in all directions—then quiet fell, and the symphony descended into darkness. The night started with musica pyralis by composer Katherine Balch. The piece, meant to embody the heightened sense of noises at night, carried that exact edge of what it’s like to tune in to the sounds of the dark hours, flutes encapsulating a bit of that adrenaline, the bassoon and contrabassoon opening up a curious night world.
Whereas pyralis tossed and turned, Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Concerto in D Major for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 35 was fresh as morning, the only land-bound piece, soft and light as strings rolled like waves of grain. This is where Huang came in, his solos high and tight yet emotional and playful, injecting a sprite energy into the performance.
A quick intermission later, after guests had a chance to chat and fawn over the evening’s first half, the night dove into Felix Mendelssohn’s Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, Op. 27, inspired by his friend Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s two poems of the same names, followed by Debussy’s three-part La mer. The romantic bled into the impressionistic, the sound occasionally swelling to thunderous (even classical music can trigger this writer’s tinnitus), eventually bringing us back to calm shores.
After the show, attendees flooded the four exits of the Schnitz, orchestra players weaving in, all in black with padded instrument cases stuck to their person. A sea of bodies eager to return home.