Beethoven, Brahms, Negrón @ Dallas Symphony Orchestra
—Gregory Sullivan Isaacs
Under the expressive and baton-less direction of music director Fabio Luisi, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra premiered “Arquitecta” by composer-in-residence Angélica Negrón this weekend. The piece is based on a poem by Puerto Rican writer Amanda Hernández, so the language of the work is Spanish. There was a good translation in the program, but a projected one perhaps would have allowed the audience to both read and watch the performance.
“Arquitecta” was sung (actually, belted out) by Lido Pimienta, for whom the work was written. The DSO program notes that her background is “Afro/Indigenous/ Colombian/Canadian/ punk/folklorist/traditionalist /transgressive/diva/angel.” Years of transgressive singing have left Pimienta’s voice sounding well-used but very communicative. She wore a pink dress with neon-green shoes, and swayed in response to the music, singing with her whole body.
The work is in honor of the women in her life; a prerecorded sampling of them speaking was played near the end of the work, and the piece opened with a percussionist making a rat-a-rat-tat clatter on cooking pots and pans from Pimienta’s own kitchen. The players couldn’t see the kitchen “instruments,” but the audience loved the fun.
This was followed by an aggressive performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto #3 in C minor with pianist Francesco Piemontesi. Born in 1983 in the small Swiss town of Locarno, he studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover, and is a close collaborator with Alfred Brendel.
Piemontesi certainly displayed nimble fingers and a steely touch throughout, though near the end the technique slightly distorted the piano in its lower register. Along the way, he presented a definite view of the concerto that seemed to differ from Luisi’s, in his tendency to rush virtuoso passages and labor over the more romantic ones. (More rehearsal time, often a victim of budget cuts, might have solved the problem.) Luisi did a fine job of staying with Piemontesi, but was occasionally surprised by some of the unexpected tempo challenges.
The most memorable performance of the evening was Luisi’s definitive reading of Brahms’ Symphony #4. This is a piece I know well, having studied it for decades and conducted it in three different performances over my time on the podium.
What was so different? Well, here is a conjecture.
Basically ignoring the valiant attempts Brahms made to squeeze this music into standard time signatures, Luisi freed the symphony from the bar line restraints and actually conducted the music. Some fans of the work may have been surprised by the performance, but once we relaxed and caught on to what he was doing, we were taken on a breathtaking ride through Brahms’ musical universe. Hemiola passages no longer sounded disorienting, but rose up from the texture like an ocean wave.
I don’t want to get too purple about this, so I will stop here—even though I have pages of astonished notes. As of today, and because of maestro Luisi, my concept of the piece is forever changed.
WHEN: May 5-7
WHERE: Meyerson Symphony Center, Dallas Arts District
WEB: dallassymphony.org
