Strauss & Tchaikovsky @ Dallas Symphony Orchestra
—Review by Wayne Lee Gay
After opening the classical season with two concert weekends under guest conductors, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra finally performs this weekend under the baton of music director Fabio Luisi.
The guest conductors in previous weeks presented neatly varied programs balancing the new with the familiar, intriguingly staying entirely within the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Luisi, however, marches straight back into the symphonic heartland of the late nineteenth century with Richard Strauss' Don Quixote of 1898 and Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony of 1888, two pieces that certainly belong on orchestral programs—just not together in the same concert. The result, though skillfully performed, is a concert including many fine moments but without the intellectual energy of contrast.
The problem ultimately lies in the Strauss work. German-born, New York-based cellist Jan Vogler serves as the featured soloist in this mammoth hybrid of symphonic variations, concerto, and programmatic tone poem (i.e., it tells a story). Voglers offers faultless technique, a convincingly rich tone quality, and a clear devotion to the work's narrative. Dallas Symphony principal viola Meredith Kufchak likewise contributes prominently in the many task Strauss assigned to solo viola.
Here, in the heyday of his early tone poem period, Strauss shows off a catalogue of orchestral technique as well as firm command of late romantic chromatic harmony as he depicts a series of events from Cervantes' iconic novel. For this listener, the result is not so much an emotional experience as a musical bag of tricks, top-heavy with inventiveness but not particularly meaningful on an artistic level a century and a quarter later. Placement next to contrasting works from earlier or later in the timeline of music would have lent at least some context and texture to the work within the program.
Although it's definitely over-programmed, that's the only argument one can make against Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony. Like Strauss, Tchaikovsky pulls out a whole array of symphonic effects together with a an unbeatable gift for melody—and in this case, superb command of musical architecture. But the composer’s artistic purpose goes beyond merely showing off compositional technique. Tchaikovsky pours agony and ecstasy into a classical structure, taking the listener on a journey ending in deliberate ambiguity—is it triumph or defiance we hear?— in the face of Fate.
Conductor Luisi handles this musical pilgrimage handsomely, starting with a restrained patience in the opening bars that allows the work to unfold into a series of gripping climaxes. The orchestra is on firm ground in this familiar work, with, of course, special kudos to principal horn David Heyde in the plaintive solo of the Andante.
As with the Strauss, this performance of the Tchaikovsky would be even more powerful if set among contrasting works from either earlier or later in the symphonic repertoire.
When: repeated on October 2
Where: Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center
