Maestro Fagen, who conducted without score, led an integrated and spacious reading. The technical quality of the performance was praiseworthy, too, from the opening moments when a French horn, dangerously exposed because of the surrounding quiet, calls forth. Thereafter, for 70 minutes, the musicians — in solo, sections, and full orchestral mode — acquitted themselves splendidly, bending flexibly and compellingly to their conductor’s will.
The audience cheered.
Peter Jacobi, HeraldTimesOnline.com, October 15, 2010