Orchestra

That Liszt once compared the second movement of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 to the story of Orpheus taming the Furies is apparently apocryphal: There is no record of Liszt saying or writing such a thing and the story probably originates with Donald Francis Tovey's essay on the piece.But the fact that this metaphor has taken such hold in the imagination -- you cannot read a set of program notes without an account of it -- proves how apt a description it is. The piano's yielding, pleading phrases do indeed conquer the fierce, stentorian cries of the orchestra: It is Beethoven at his most operatic.

THE PEABODY CONSERVATORY today announced the appointment of Hajime Teri Murai, a highly regarded 37-year-old conductor and teacher, as music director of the Peabody Symphony Orchestra.Murai, known as Teri, comes from the College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati. He created some excitement in December when he conducted the Peabody orchestra's 90 musicians in Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 and other works.The orchestra has been without a fulltime resident director since Peter Eros left several years ago, but it was praised for its concerts in the Soviet Union in 1987.

The music of 20th-century America will figure prominently in the Columbia Orchestra's 2000- 2001 concert season. Conductor Jason Love has organized the orchestra's musical offerings around a succession of compositions that reveal the country's artistic personality in all its multifaceted splendor. The arresting brass and percussion figures in Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" will open the season Oct. 21 at Jim Rouse Theatre for the Performing Arts, 5460 Trumpeter Road. That evening's concert will also include the stirring, reverent "Lincoln Portrait," in which the composer's uniquely evocative harmonies accompany the spoken words of the nation's 16th president.

I spent some very pleasant time at St. Anne's Church Saturday evening, courtesy of J. Ernest Green and his Annapolis Chorale Chamber Choir.With soprano soloist Jane Adler and members of the Annapolis Chamber Orchestra, Mr. Green and his singers presented a program of delectable masterworks: Bach's Easter cantata, "Christ lag in Todesbanden"; Mozart's "Exsultate, Jubilate"; "Regina Coeli," the Albinoni Adagio; and the "Farewell" Symphony of Haydn.The chamber choir is in fine fettle these days, especially its female singers.

Conductor Steven Gilmer, who most recently led the music for Anne Arundel Community College's production of "Cabaret," makes his debut Sunday as music director of the college's Community Orchestra.At 4 p.m., he will take the podium at the Pascal Center to conduct Rossini's overture to "The Barber of Seville," the Symphony No. 90 of Haydn and selections from Beethoven's "The Creatures of Prometheus."Jean Joseph Mouret's "Rondeau" -- better known as the theme from "Masterpiece Theater" -- will round out the program.

The Internet, which connects people every millisecond in one way or another, has generated an entire orchestra from a cyber pool of strangers - aspiring players from 70 countries on six continents who uploaded more than 3,000 audition videos. The YouTube Symphony Orchestra, which bows April 15 in New York's famed Carnegie Hall with a concert led by esteemed conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, began online in December with an open invitation to players of all levels to try out for the ensemble.

Steve Nagrabski, the Highlandtown accordionist whose Silver Notes Orchestra serenaded East Baltimore's Polish community for more than 30 years, died of an aneurysm March 18 at his Highlandtown residence. He was 71.For Mr. Nagrabski, the sweetest sound in the world was the jaunty and happy music that emanated from the bellows of his black and white Iorio accordion.He assembled his band in the early 1950s and was a fixture at East Baltimore bull roasts, weddings, union picnics, Christmas parties, VFW halls and dances.

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra concert last night at the Meyerhoff was a real show of strengths -- but not, unfortunately, equal strengths. With conductor Thomas Wilkins at the podium, the BSO had ample opportunity to demonstrate its power and versatility. In Handel's "Music for the Royal Fireworks," its sound was light and crisp, with a vivacity that bordered on effervescence; in Respighi's "The Pines of Rome," it was sumptuously virtuosic. Hearing them in these works, it was easy to understand why the BSO is ranked among the nation's top orchestras.

The musicians of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra either went on strike Monday or were locked out, depending on whom you ask. Either way, their stage was abandoned, and 33 horn and double-bass players who have been showing up this week for scheduled auditions were left stranded. The development followed an 85-3 vote to reject a management contract offer. It was a minor-key coda to a season of labor unrest last fall in four of the nation's Big Five orchestras - in Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland and New York.

Charles Vincent Fertitta, whose swing-era society orchestra entertained at numerous Baltimore hotels, clubs and social gatherings during the 1930s and 1940s, died of Alzheimer's disease Sunday at Riverview Care Center in Essex. He was 94. Mr. Fertitta was born in Baltimore and raised on Maine Avenue in Forest Park. He was a 1931 graduate of City College. In his youth, he learned to play the drums and saxophone and founded the Charles Vincent Orchestra - "Tops in Fine Music" - in the late 1920s.