The most compelling performance of a Beethoven symphony I’ve heard in quite a while happened Tuesday night at Moody Performance Hall. With music director Richard McKay conducting the Dallas Chamber Symphony, the Eroica (No. 3) had some balance issues, but apart from maybe the first tempo in the finale it must have been pretty close to Beethoven’s lively metronome markings. Proving the oft-disregarded tempo indications both practicable and dramatically gripping, the performance captured a nervous intensity that seems quintessentially Beethovenian.
The Eroica was the second half of a concert that stuck to music composed in Vienna within a mere 18 years, between 1786 and 1803. The first half comprised Mozart’s Don Giovanni Overture and, with pianist Jonathan Mamora, the Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major (K. 488).
We misrepresent Beethoven by monumentalizing him, by cloaking him in musical equivalents of plush Roman robes and setting him on a throne. Especially from the Eroica on, his is rarely music to comfort the comfortable. It increasingly challenges expectations and pushes boundaries.
This certainly came across in Tuesday’s performance. The first movement felt like an excitable conversation among different sections of the orchestra. The famous Funeral March had a deliberate step, not a ponderous one. The scherzo was exhilarating.
Only the first part of the finale felt a little too deliberate. Its little cat-and-mouse chases and peekaboos prove that Beethoven did have a sense of humor. (The “Heroic” subtitle was an afterthought, as was the original, and subsequently obliterated, dedication to Napoleon.)
McKay boldly sculpted dynamics and gave plenty of thrust to accents, and the orchestra dispatched his brisk tempos with aplomb. But trumpets were repeatedly too loud in balances, as occasionally were horns, although the latter made jolly sounds in their scherzo summonses. Rather metallic sounding oboes were too aggressive in the Funeral March.
Trumpets at the time of the Eroica had yet to acquire modern valves, and they were considerably quieter than modern ones. Never serving melodic functions here, they’re meant merely to color dramatic passages, elsewhere to reinforce accents. This time, they too often blared.
The Don Giovanni Overture got a respectable performance, although the spooky opening could have used more urgency, and violins weren’t always the tidiest in the ensuing quick music.
Mamora’s booking was part of his first prize in the 2022 Dallas International Piano Competition, sponsored by the DCS. He was a personable and often poetic soloist in the concerto, just occasionally rushing downbeats in busier writing. McKay and the orchestra supplied alert, shapely collaboration.
It’s great to see the DCS attracting a lot of newcomers to classical music, and they’re audibly enthusiastic. But maybe McKay’s comments from the stage could include some practical counsel.
Maybe something like, “We hope our performances will make you want to applaud. But these multiple movement works are best enjoyed if you hold your applause until all the movements have been played. Will you mind doing that? Oh, and it’s better for people behind you if you don’t shoot photos or videos during the concert.”
