Mendelssohn/Schumann/Dvořák @ The Dallas Symphony Orchestra
—Wayne Lee Gay
Jun Märkl returns to the podium of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra this week, demonstrating elegant and efficiently expressive conducting in a concert dedicated to three familiar items from the nineteenth-century repertoire.
Indeed, the one obvious weakness in the program is its focus on one style period. In Märkl’s most recent appearance with the orchestra in 2017, he presented an all-French program that ranged across three distinctive styles, from Romanticism (Saint-Saëns) to Post-Impressionism (Poulenc) to Modernism (Messiaen). This weekend’s agenda sticks to the classic Romanticism of Mendelssohn’s Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage Overture, Schumann’s Concerto in A minor for Piano and Orchestra, Opus 54, and Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, “From the New World.” Mendelssohn and Schumann were good friends; and though neither knew Dvořák, he was closely linked to Schumann via their mutual close friendship with Brahms. In other words, it was all in the family.
While one might possibly argue in favor of a concert focusing on a single style period, the presence of the “New World” symphony, with its obvious box office appeal and broad familiarity, begs the inclusion of something more adventurous than two other items from the classical hit parade.
Still, there’s much to be said for each piece separately in Märkl’s readings. The sustained chords that begin the Mendelssohn overture, suggesting a still sea, demand an extremely high level of control and concentration across the string section, a challenge Märkl and the musicians fulfill neatly; likewise, Märkl convincingly creates the aura of open air and sea in the more lively “Prosperous Voyage” section.
A falling four-note motif near the end of the Mendelssohn work faintly anticipates a similar melodic pattern in the first movement of the Schumann concerto; conductor Märkl may or may not have intended for the listener to notice the resemblance. Kirill Gerstein, a Russian-born U.S. citizen now based in Berlin, brings a delicately shaped phrasing as soloist for the concerto, highlighted in the gorgeous duet with clarinet at the beginning of the development section of the first movement. Throughout the first two movements, Gerstein displays a singer’s sense of phrasing, managing to be both refined and assertive. At Thursday night’s concert, the third movement proved disappointing, however: conductor and pianist never quite integrated the busy passage-work in the piano part with the overall sweep of the movement.
Familiar as Dvořák’s Ninth Symphony is, the work’s sheer power remains; it belongs to that body of works that are popular because they deserve to be. Americans have a particular connection to the work because it’s the first large-scale classical symphony conceived and completed in America (besides being a standard item for decades of music appreciation classes). The thematic material is purely Czech in character, with a heavy dose of Beethoven-inspired gestures, but it’s easy to also hear in the score the breadth and grandeur of the American continent, which Dvořák knew well from his extended stay and travel from the east coast to the middle west in the 1890s.
Dvořák hoped to inspire Americans to create their own national classical music based on African-American folk spirituals, much as he and some of his colleagues had built a Czech national music based on Czech folk idioms. Though probably not in the way Dvořák would have imagined, American composers and popular musicians did indeed build several distinctively American national music movements in the twentieth century, drawing generously from elements specific to African-American culture.
In this performance, conductor Märkl and the orchestra give a beautifully detailed rendition of this well-known but sometimes intricately complex score. Dvořák’s mastery of orchestration and counterpoint create numerous musical thrills in the hands of the Dallas Symphony in the acoustically excellent Meyerson. David Matthews performs the famous English horn solo in the second movement with a sweetly textured tone and sense of the music. And the wild Bohemian dances and passionate climaxes are as exciting and engaging as always, right down to that lingering, majestic coda.
WHEN: Performances April 15th and 16th
WHERE: Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center
WEB: dallassymphony.org
