The orchestra played splendidly, producing rich, dark string sound in the elegiac opening of the slow movement.
Arpeggiation (usually either slow, dark string figures or rapidly ascending woodwind swirls) and stretches of straightforward major and minor block chords are central pillars.
The women's chorus sang "Coronach," the men the "Gesang der Geister: Uber den Wassern," with its curiously dark string accompaniments.
We generally think of composers having a singular, identifiable voice -- people like Sibelius, for example, whose dark string unisons, high-pitched tremolos and exploding crescendos, in this symphony and its companion pieces, are like signatures.
In the Respighi, the young musicians handled extremes deftly: "The Pines of the Appian Way" dazzled, thanks to finely polished woodwind and brass playing, and "Pines Near a Catacomb" benefited from eerily dark string playing and gracefully turned solo lines, most notably Anthony Limoncelli's offstage trumpet solo.
Carlile, a fan of the "dark" string arrangements that appear on John's album Tumbleweed Connection (1970), contacted Buckmaster following advice from her manager.
Besides all this, there are glow-in-the-dark strings that assume all manner of beguiling shapes, an acrobatic larva, huge fabric orbs that roll all over the place and a pack of penguins that play a not-so-sporting but very funny game of musical chairs.
She is best known for starring in Silk and The Village but Maxine Peake has another, darker, string to her bow.
These musicians cultivate the characteristic Russian orchestral sound, with dark, mellow strings, reedy, plaintive woodwinds and weighty, soft-edged brasses.
At times he had the Met orchestra sounding like a Russian ensemble with reedy woodwinds, mellow brass and dark, throbbing strings.
