Sibelius & Shostakovich @ Dallas Symphony Orchestra

—Wayne Lee Gay

Finnish guest conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste joins the Dallas Symphony Orchestra for an impressively dark program this weekend, including an early folk-inspired work of Sibelius and one of Shostakovich's most expansive (and pessimistic) symphonies.

The concert makes little concession to light-heartedness or merriment in its 75-minute stretch, performed without intermission; even Sibelius' Pojohla's Daughter, completed in 1906 and based on the story of a wise maiden who tricks a sorcerer, is shaded against an almost palpable backdrop of deep forests and long winters.

In the opening Sibelius work, conductor Saraste advocates movingly for a composer who remains one of Finland's iconic national figures. The somber opening theme rises patiently to a radiant high point; the rich colors characteristic of Sibelius' symphonic cycle emerge with a particularly poignancy under Sarasate's guidance. Sibelius always keeps the listener guessing in the final moments of his music; here, Saraste makes the most of the quiet, whispered close. Although Sibelius was once scorned by the academic branch of the musical establishment for clinging to nineteenth-century romanticism, in our own time it's obvious that he meaningfully extended and further evolved romanticism for the twentieth century—and for audiences in the twenty-first.

In his hour-long, five-movement Eighth Symphony, Shostakovich hands the orchestra an endless series of technical challenges and exposed passages. Meanwhile, the work requires the conductor to build and maintain momentum across a monumental span; at the same time, the conductor must deal with the ambivalence of a genius living in a society simultaneously oppressed by Stalin and threatened by Hitler. Does Shostakovich portay the horrors of the Nazi invasion, or is he protesting the equally frightening terrors of Stalinism? Or, more likely, does he express his inner reaction to a world gone very badly wrong?

The Dallas Symphony handles the technical issues neatly under Saraste's guidance, beginning with the angular themes and contrasting moments of sorrow—or is it resignation?—in the first movement. Two bitter scherzo-like movements follow, each featuring jagged themes, relentless motion, and moments of grotesquery, leaving a sense of triumph without joy. A slowly unwinding Largo—once again challenging the skills of orchestra and conductor—leads at last to a Finale in which Shostakovich, quite deliberately, never allows us to be at ease with the surface of serenity and acceptance. In short, it's definitely a concert aimed at music lovers who are prepared to surrender to an emotionally exhausting and relentlessly intense artistic experience.

WHEN: Repeated Saturday and Sunday (April 29 & 30)

WHERE: Meyerson Symphony Center, Dallas

WEB: dallassymphony.org