DCist Jeff Beam contributed to this post.

Drew McManus, who writes about the orchestra business at the ArtsJournal blog Adaptistration, has dubbed April Take a Friend to the Orchestra month. For the second year now, Drew has lined up names in the classical music world to write pieces on how ordinary people who love classical music can invite a friend who does not regularly go to hear live music to a concert. This year's articles include entries from the Washington area by Kim Pensinger Witman, artistic director of Wolf Trap Opera, and Leonard Slatkin, music director of the National Symphony Orchestra. We decided to take Drew's challenge, so DCist's own Jeff Beam, who writes on the Nationals as well as urban planning and other city issues, came with me Friday night for a cultural ride-along.

As part of its current American tour, the Australian Chamber Orchestra stopped by the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center Friday night. The varied program of enjoyable music seemed like a good option for someone without much concert experience. Richard Tognetti, the group's lead violinist and artistic director, led the sort of energetic, polished, unified performance that has made their name. Traversing music in a range of styles, the ACO exploited the full range of dynamic contrasts and textures. No element was out of place, and yet the level of precision did not lead to a feeling of coldness or emotional distance.

What impression did it leave on Jeff?

Photo of the Australian Chamber Orchestra by Stephen Oxenbury

Despite my best intentions, I was thoroughly not in a mood for an evening of stuffiness after a bear of a week at work. I just wanted a drink, a distraction, and my bed, in that order. I considered canceling, but eventually reasoned myself into going, much like I'd reason myself into a salad instead of a chili dog (rare, but it happens).

It's not that I dislike classical music – I don't at all. I've been to more than a few symphonies. I was just tired. And perhaps, just a little bit, I was intimidated by the fact that an aficionado like Charles would be enjoying the concerto at such a sophisticated level while I tried to recall the differences between the viola and the violin.

Of course, by the middle of first movement (and I'm pretty sure that's the right word), I remember the transformative power that music – any great music – has in a live setting; it's a stimulant and a powerful depressant at once. The cellist, Wispelwey, comes out to play Haydn, and it's like nothing I've seen before. He convulses viciously, like he's trying to saw the instrument in half with his bow, making it groan these throaty sounds I didn't know were possible. Minutes later, he's playing at a whisper, and I catch myself leaning forward to just make out the notes. The rest of the strings join in, and the music soars. It has volume, and not just as a measure of decibels, but a more literal sense of volume: a sound that builds and builds, filling the hall to the trusses above.

It eventually ends, but not before I promise myself (again) that I absolutely must do this sort of thing more often. -- Jeff Beam

Two Baroque selections were idiomatic and dramatically etched, especially the F major concerto grosso by Corelli (op. 6, no. 2). Tognetti's cadenzas wove together the sectionalized first movement, joining pulse-racing Vivace with the searing suspensions of the Adagio. In the Vivaldi selection, the concerto for four violins (B minor, op. 3, no. 10), Tognetti's solo contribution stood out from those of his three colleagues (all four are in the front row of the photograph shown above). One had the sense that Tognetti was trying to drive the tempo forward, but it flagged slightly when he was not playing. The first half concluded with a Viennese classical concerto, Haydn's C major cello concerto (Hob. VIIb). As soloist, Dutch cellist Pieter Wispelwey set the tone for the piece with a full-throated sound that lent a rustic, jolly quality. Wispelwey's extended cadenzas were eclectic, replete with challenging pizzicati, strummed chords, and multiple stops. One hoped for a movement from a Bach suite, played so memorably on Wispelwey's recording, as an encore. No one was disappointed when, quietly observing the passing of Mstislav Rostropovich earlier in the day, Wispelwey offered instead a movement from a Benjamin Britten suite, composed for and dedicated to Rostropovich. As the final notes trailed off quietly into the air, it made me imagine Slava circling the earth to listen to the many tributes offered in his memory that night.

The best playing of the evening was on Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence, op. 70, which constituted the second half. This meaty and extended work conceived for string sextet was based on music sketched out during the composer's visit to Florence. The first-movement waltz featured beautiful duets between Tognetti and the whiskey-voiced viola, leading up to a wild accelerando to an exciting conclusion. The second movement's delicate melody, played with admirable purity by Tognetti, was accompanied by guitar-like pizzicato chords. The hushed, quick middle section was shaped into wind-like sweeps of sound. Two encores capped off the evening, with the sugary frosting of Tognetti's own string ensemble arrangement of Debussy's prelude for piano, La fille aux cheveux de lin (The girl with the flaxen hair) washed down with a more nutritious arrangement of the Allegro molto movement from William Walton's second string quartet.