Conductor Vasily Petrenko @ Dallas Symphony Orchestra
—Wayne Lee Gay
The Dallas Symphony Orchestra closes its 2023-24 classical season this weekend with renowned Russian-born, British-based conductor Vasily Petrenko on the podium for an intriguing concert at the Meyerson.
The program has a distinctly international and modern flavor, given that one hundred years on, composers Sergei Prokofiev and William Walton still are considered "modern." And it provides a possibly historic moment as well, with the world premiere of a contemporary Italian composer's vision of some quintessentially American poetry.
Emily Dickinson's deceptively simple verses could not have been written anywhere but in America. In his "Four Poems by Emily Dickinson"—composed for children's chorus and orchestra—Italian Andrea Basevi impressively captures and creates new insights into the sometimes stunning profundity contained within Dickinson's succinct poems.
Dickinson loved the sound of words, and Basevi plays with that, unafraid to dwell on a single word or phrase, and equally unafraid to ask the singers and the orchestra to create sound effects—wind blowing, bees buzzing, birds chirping—but without slipping into the cheap or obvious. All emerges in Basevi's composition with a simple majesty matching and worthy of the text.
The textures for both orchestra and choir glitter and sweep; simple melodies, which could almost be folksongs, float past on the streams of beautiful sound. We expect a professional orchestra to handle difficult writing of this sort, but the young singers of the Dallas Symphony Children's Chorus, trained by Ellie Lin, excel with this complex score. And conductor Petrenko demonstrates not only a complete command of the intricate music, but of the subtleties of this great American poet's words.
Pianist Denis Kozhukhin, another Russian-born musician (who, like Petrenko, now works entirely outside of his homeland), fills the concerto slot of the program with Prokofiev's No. 2. Technical fireworks blaze throughout the four-movement work; however, while direction and structure were clear and impressive in the first movement, Kozhukhin allows momentum to drown in the tsunami of notes in the ensuing sections. (For his encore on Thursday, he responded to the thunderous ovation by playing an intense rendition of the simple "In Church" from Tchaikovsky's Album for the Young.)
After intermission, Petrenko and the orchestra turned to one of the landmarks of twentieth-century music, Walton's Symphony No. 1 of 1935 (revised 1968). Here, the young Walton builds a perfect four-movement structure, rich in beautifully formed ideas and unfailingly engaging orchestration. Petrenko paces the work magnificently, knowing exactly when to shape the numerous climaxes, and creating a sense of pure musical energy.
WHEN: May 23-25, 2024
WHERE: Meyerson Symphony Center, Dallas
WEB: dallassymphony.org
