FORT WORTH — If you’re up for a really imaginative, stimulating orchestra concert, repeats of the Fort Worth Symphony’s Friday night concert are highly recommended.
The program, ranging from the Prelude to Engelbert Humperdinck’s opera Hansel and Gretel to the world premiere of Brian Raphael Nabors’ Of Earth and Sky: Tales from the Motherland, could have been titled “Fantasies and Legends.” It was filled out with evocative works by Ravel and Charles Tomlinson Griffes, and Stravinsky’s 1919 Firebird Suite was performed with 12 dancers from Texas Ballet Theater. With music director Robert Spano conducting, at Bass Performance Hall, the orchestra played throughout with skill and sophistication.
Nabors, an Alabama native in his early 30s, with a doctorate in composition from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, draws on African myths in his 25-minute, four-movement suite. The middle movements weren’t clearly differentiated — supertitles would have been helpful — but here’s what I gleaned:
“Huveane Moves Away from the Humans” evokes divine creation, then withdrawal, in sonic bursts, chatters and fanfares. “Anansi” portrays a wily teacher and trickster — a counterpart to the coyote of American Indian mythology — in brightly colored, elaborately layered dances.
“Nyami Nyami,” a Tonga dragon god, is represented with explosions and flashes, then somber musings by violas. Finally, “Celebration” is a blowout of feisty dances, percussion driven, bristling with syncopations and busy counterpoints. This could also be excerpted as a flashy concert opener.
Spano and the orchestra gave a brilliant performance, prefaced by Nabors’ personable video introduction, projected on a big screen over the stage.
Humperdinck’s opera is based on the Grimm brothers’ fairytale. Its prelude deftly mingles music noble, tender, happy and downright jolly. FWSO horns were in particularly fine form in their opening moments to shine.
Ravel’s five-movement Mother Goose Suite draws on Charles Perrault’s children’s tales. Spano led the orchestra in a performance of diaphanous delicacies, with just enough sparkle at the right moments and a suavely calibrated final crescendo.
Charles Tomlinson Griffes, a pioneering American impressionist who lived from 1884 to 1920, was represented by his 1919 tone poem, The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan, inspired by Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem Kubla Khan. “Exotic” textures, melodies and harmonies rise to a climax of telling splendor before fading away.
With the orchestra playing the Stravinsky upstage from stand lights, evocatively costumed dancers, vividly choreographed by Tim O’Keefe, brought the Firebird action to life downstage. The sinister Kastchei (Carl Coomer) and his minions jerked and flung themselves about in red and black. In a brilliant red tutu, Nicole Von Enck’s Firebird flitted and pirouetted as if lighter than air.
Andre Silva’s Prince Ivan was very much the danseur noble, Rieko Hatato the gracious Princess Tsarevna, abetted by four princesses in pink.
Yet again, Spano had the orchestra vividly characterizing the music, from finely finished pianissimos to thrilling but carefully controlled explosions of brass. It was a concert to leave you full of wonder at both music and musicians — and this time at dancers, as well.
Details
Repeats at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at Bass Performance Hall, Fourth and Commerce, Fort Worth. $26 to $99. 817-665-6000, fwsymphony.org.
