‘Copland and Liszt’ @ Dallas Symphony Orchestra
—Wayne Lee Gay
A masterpiece of American music in performance by an outstanding guest soloist highlights this weekend's opening of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra's 2023-24 classical series at the Meyerson Symphony Center.
Anthony McGill, the Chicago-born principal clarinetist of the New York Philharmonic, joins DSO orchestra and music director Fabio Luisi for a sublime rendition of Copland's Clarinet Concerto of 1950. McGill's tone is sweet and assertive at the same time; from the notes of the gorgeous tune that opens the piece, he hypnotizes with the sheer beauty of the sound he creates. As the work makes its journey from lyricism to infectious energy, McGill demonstrates a musicality ranging from majestic virtuosity to jaunty humor.
Three quarters of a century have passed since Copland (who died in 1990) composed the Clarinet Concerto at the height of his fame. Since then, his reputation has suffered frequent battering at the hands of musical academics and critics. Audiences, however, continue to love and appreciate his broad harmonies and warm melodies, subtly suggestive of the expansive North American landscape and, to many listeners, emblematic of the indomitable American spirit at its best. Free of the programmatic connotations of many of Copland's most famous works (e.g., Appalachian Spring, Rodeo, Billy the Kid, and "Fanfare for the Common Man"), the Clarinet Concerto encapsulates the best of Copland's compositional assets, including his gift for melody, his command of musical architecture, and his resonant harmonic language. Together, clarinetist McGill, conductor Luisi, and the Dallas Symphony (reduced, as called for by the score, to strings, piano, and harp) make a strong case not only for the Clarinet Concerto but also for Copland's rank at the top of the list of American composers.
Indeed, considering his Italian nationality, conductor Luisi has been an unusually strong advocate of mid-twentieth-century American symphonic music, of which the Copland Concerto is a prime example. To that end, preceding the Copland work, Luisi opens the concert with William Schuman's American Festival Overture of 1939—not a masterpiece, but an energetic (and occasionally noisy) product of a moment when Americans longed (as today) for direction and renewed identity in a troubled world.
After the all-American first half, Luisi and the orchestra turn to a rarely performed masterpiece of the nineteenth century, Liszt's "Faust" Symphony. The extraordinary innovations in harmony and orchestration in the work (completed in 1857 with minor revision in 1880), along with the bravery of the concept, entitle it to the rank of masterpiece. Wagner borrowed shamelessly from the ideas in the score, and Mahler appropriated Liszt's concept—a grand choral finale based on a specific quote from Goethe—for his Eighth Symphony.
However, the length of the “Faust” (at 75 minutes, a full 15-30 minutes longer than the typical "long" orchestral work) mitigates against more frequent performance. One can certainly debate the extent to which even the thrilling final moments merit the work's dimensions. Still, the work is a fascinating musical expression of the nineteenth-century obsession with the Faust legend, in which an aging scholar sells his soul to the devil in return for temporary youth, fame, wealth, and romance.
Liszt here separates and explores the three main elements driving the legend: the masculine, the feminine, and the demonic. In the first movement, Faust enters with lonely unison strings, gradually building to a stirring triumphal march. In the second, the innocent sweetness of Gretchen morphs into darker mysteries of womanhood. In the third, the demon Mephistopholes glitters, rages, and parodies Gretchen and Faust. The "eternal feminine" triumphs in the apotheosis: though twenty-first century listeners may find the formula and outcome quaint, profound, or somewhere in between, they can hardly avoid admiring Liszt's inventive creativity.
A musical tapestry of these dimensions necessarily presents astounding technical problems, all admirably handled by the orchestra. Section leaders throughout carry their essential, often exposed roles magnificently. From the choral terrace above the orchestra, tenor Carl Tanner, (an American-born former long-haul truck driver who found his true calling on the international operatic stage) delivers his brief but excruciatingly demanding tenor solo with power and passion. He's joined in that final declaration by the vocally muscular men of the Dallas Symphony Chorus led by Anthony Blake Clark. And, at the helm of this arduous musical voyage, conductor Luisi steers the many separate elements unfailingly toward the rousing close, rich with romantic longing and visionary mysticism.
WHEN: repeated on Sunday, October 1
WHERE: Meyerson Symphony Center, Dallas Arts District
WEB: dallassymphony.org
