‘Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 3’ @ Dallas Symphony Orchestra
—Gregory Sullivan Isaacs
On Friday evening, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra presented a grab-bag concert with guest conductor Peter Oundjian on the podium. Nothing really fit with anything else. However, two of the works are rarely played, and another has only recently premiered. All were interesting to hear.
Samuel Barber’s 1960 Toccata Festiva for Organ and Orchestra opened the concert with a celebratory feel and a mind-boggling cadenza on the pedals. The ’60s saw a bounty of fine concert organs installed in major performance halls. The organ for the Academy of Music in Philadelphia was funded by Mary Curtis Zimbalist (of Curtis Institute fame). She also commissioned this festive work for the occasion, asking Barber to do the honors. The composer was a friend and protege dating back to his student days at the institute.
Bradley Hunter Welch did the fleet-footed honors on the Lay Family Organ. In fact, Welch may be one of the few organists around who is quite intimately familiar with this massive instrument. His registrations are always spot on and his unique combinations of stops show both originality and imagination. Technically, he gave a masterful performance of this famously difficult work. If only we could have seen his pedal work up close during the extended pedal cadenza.
Dr. Welch has been a local favorite ever since he won the 2003 Dallas International Organ Competition. He currently serves as Artist-in-Residence at Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church, and made his first solo organ recording in Fort Worth on the Rildia Bee O’Bryan Cliburn Organ at Broadway Baptist Church. (Organists need a church affiliation because that is, generally, where the concert-style organs are located.)
Barber’s splashy opener was followed by a new work, premiered this past July, entitled JFK: The Last Speech, composed by Adolphus Hailstork (who was in attendance). The DSO was a co-commissioner of the work, so after its performance with the Colorado Symphony, Dallas was the second stop. Oundjian conducts all performances, which also feature soprano Janice Chandler-Eteme and narrator Quincy Roberts (replacing the originally cast Kevin Deas, at least for this performance).
Although no one could have suspected it at the time, JFK’s last speech was delivered in October of 1963 at Amherst College in Massachusetts, and honored the poet Robert Frost (who had, one may remember, recited at Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural). The text of the present work combines parts of the speech with some of Frost’s poetry. Fortunately, the words were projected as supertitles, because diction from both performers was a bit blurred.
Soprano Janice Chandler-Eteme has a lovely, dark-hued and creamy sound that remains firmly in the lyric sphere. Her voice is consistent from top to bottom and she sings effortlessly, without a hint of tension. Little wonder, because she studied at Indiana University (known as Opera U) where she worked with the world-famous dramatic soprano and uber voice teacher Margaret Harshaw.
Quincy Roberts, a local Dallas-based singer and businessman, delivered his spoken lines in an equally resonant voice. He was not as expressive as Chandler-Eteme, but of course his task called for delivering Kennedy’s prose instead of Frost’s evocative poetry.
Musically, the score functioned as if for a film, commenting on and illustrating the text. It opened with an angular trumpet fanfare in dotted rhythms. The other brass players joined in, adding jazz-based harmonies to the assertive introduction. Shimmering strings laid an undercurrent for motivic lines in the winds and horn. Hailstrok makes extensive use of the harp, using it for accompanying in the manner of a lush guitar. Always expressive, the piece had some beautiful and romantically orchestrated moments, large and small. Some of the tone painting was too obvious, such as the ominous turn at the word “corrupts.” However, even though a little Copland-esque, Hailstrok’s music satisfactorily underscored the text.
The program closed with Sergei Rachmaninoff’s baffling Symphony #3. Written for full orchestra, and then some, this work from1938 shows the composer struggling to mix his innate style with modern sensibilities. No easy task, as many a composer of the era discovered. But most observers think that this effort failed. He ended up disappointing the fans of his overripe late romanticism, while getting nothing but harrumphs from the modernists.
The main problem with this symphony is that it is too compact, lacking the expansive vision of the composer’s other works. Motivic themes have a Rachmininoff-ian beauty, but they are made up of repeated motives that rise up sequentially, but never quite reach the summit before retreating.
As with some of his other works, Rachmaninoff opens this symphony with a single line used throughout the work as a signature motto. Oundjian certainly knows this concentrated score and has specific ideas about how it should go. The most outstanding aspect of his performance was his subtle control of dynamics. For most of the symphony, dynamics were carefully layered so that important lines would rise and fall over complex orchestral mutterings. The big moments were used sparingly so that they had maximum impact when he turned the orchestra loose.
Rachmaninoff’s second movement combines a traditional slow tempo with a scherzo. We find this in Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto and in some of Rachmaninoff’s other works. It does quite nicely here because of the mosaic nature of the entire piece and Oundjian’s attention to detail.
Oundjian let the finale burst onto the scene in a manner reminiscent of the composer’s festival-based Russian heritage. Yet, it is a celebration tinged with the nostalgia of an exiled Russian soul living in Hollywood, of all places. The ending catches us by surprise, perhaps because we expected a longer buildup to its final exhortation.
Peter Oundjian is the Principal Conductor of the Colorado Symphony, which changed to virtual performance when the pandemic required a rethinking of performance space. In the past, he was the Music Director of the Toronto Symphony and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. He has also toured extensively, appearing with most of the major symphonies around the world.
WHEN: October 6-8 (repeated Saturday evening & Sunday afternoon)
WHERE: Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, Dallas
WEB: dallassymphony.org
