Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto (etc.) @ Dallas Symphony Orchestra
—Gregory Sullivan Isaacs
The Meyerson Symphony Center was packed with what appeared to be a mostly unmasked full house. Even though COVID warnings continue to be the stuff of the daily news, trust in the vaccine and its family of boosters seems to have brought audiences back to the concert hall. Of course, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s program may have had something to do with the near sell-out.
For one thing, Karina Canellakis was on the podium. She remains a local favorite from her stint as the DSO assistant conductor from 2014 to 2016, the year she won the Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award. Her career has gone international with an impressive list of affiliations with major orchestras, including the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic and other orchestras in Berlin and London. Her guest conducting list is even more impressive.
Another attraction of the evening was the chance to hear Tchaikovsky’s ever-popular Concerto in D Major for Violin and Orchestra, full of virtuosic fireworks and gorgeous melodies. This was combined with natural curiosity about the young firebrand American violinist Randall Goosby (an Itzhak Perlman protégé), who was the featured performer. And he is young indeed, born in 1996 to an African American father and a Korean mother. His naming as a “Rising Star” of the Stradivari Society brought him the use of one of their magnificent violins—crafted by the master Bartolomeo Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesu in Cremona in 1735.
In Goosby’s able hands, the glory of the violin was displayed in all its remarkable dimensions. He brought out the contrast between the instrument's dark resonance on the lower strings and the mellow brilliance of the top strings. His performance combined technical mastery with an innate musical connection to the concerto as a piece of music rather than a showpiece for nimble fingers.
This is a piece full of rubato and quicksilver tempo changes, and Canellakis, a violinist herself, offered a clear and supportive accompaniment assisted by the very attentive DSO. Goosby solved the problem of what to do during the orchestral tutti passages by turning around to face the orchestra. His body language ably demonstrated that he was still involved with the music, not simply waiting for his next turn to play.
Goosby’s performance of the cadenza in the first movement was exceptionally sensitive and not a show-off opportunity. He used the full abilities of the del Gesu to cast a spell with the gorgeous spinning melody of the interlude-like second movement. He played it as a constant stream of sound demonstrating his bow control. However, breathing with the phrases would have brought out Tchaikovsky’s vocal construction. He tended to rush the passagework in the last movement, a common trait among young performers, but Canellakis always caught up with him within a beat or two.
The audience gave the performance two ecstatic ovations, one after the first movement and an even bigger one at the end of the explosive finale. If the second movement didn’t proceed directly to the finale without a break, there probably have been another ovation at that point as well. He offered the audience a choice between two encores, some Bach or Blues. You can guess what the audience demanded, so he played the Louisiana Blues Strut.
An aside: This cocky encore has a history appropriate to the occasion. It was for written for Sanford Allen (the first African American musician hired by the New York Philharmonic) by the African American composer, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson.
The program opened with Dvorák’s tone poem The Wood Dove. Like all program music, it tells a tale. Here, it is one of forbidden love, murder, and suicide. In spite of its dark underpinnings, Canellakis shaped it into an involving example of the composer’s Wagnerian-inspired melodic gifts.
She impressed again taking on the complexities of Witold Lutoslawski’s Concerto for Orchestra. Written between 1950 and 1954, in 1963 this work was the first to bring him international fame. It comes in a long line of works called “concerti for orchestra” started by Paul Hindemith in 1925. The best-known of the genre was written by Béla Bartók for conductor Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Bartók’s work is a staple of the repertoire while Lutoslawski’s struggles for inclusion. Hearing it under Canellakis’s highly controlled yet expressive baton makes you wonder why.
She is a technically superb conductor. Her gestures are precise and minimal, yet she is not afraid to let loose when the situation calls for dramatic conducting. She is in touch with the players and communicates exactly what she wants musically without fuss or grandstanding. She carefully gradates her dynamics from an almost inaudible pianissimo, while saving the big guns for the proper moments. Lutoslawski’s thorny piece received almost as enthusiastic an ovation as the much more accessible Tchaikovsky or Dvorák—and that is quite an accomplishment.
WHEN: Repeated today, January 29, at 3:00
WHERE: Meyerson Symphony Center, Dallas
WEB: dallassymphony.org
