It did seem an odd way to start a symphony season.
The all-American first half — William Schuman’s flashy American Festival Overture and Aaron Copland’s sublime Clarinet Concerto — fine. But then 70 minutes of Lisztian rumination and bombast on Goethe’s Faust?
Well, Fabio Luisi and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra convinced me Thursday night. Starting his fourth season as music director, Luisi had the orchestra balancing brilliance with amazing subtlety — in a program that didn’t allow much coasting.
And what a thrill it was again to luxuriate in the Meyerson Symphony Center acoustics. The orchestra had visceral impact and startling clarity, wrapped in surround-sound warmth — and just enough reverberant afterglow.
The only repeat performance of this program, on Sunday afternoon, gets a serious “buy” recommendation. Saturday night’s concert is the fundraising Gala, with mezzo Isabel Leonard and pianist Emanuel Ax as soloists.
It’s a shame William Schuman (1910-92) is remembered mainly for his New England Triptych and his orchestration of Ives’ America Variations. His Third Symphony, in particular, is a masterpiece.
Schuman’s compositional virtuosity is displayed in the 1939 American Festival Overture. Dazzling in rhythm and orchestration, it includes no fewer than three busy fugues. (Two might have been enough.) Luisi had the orchestra setting off finely timed sparks, the fugal developments clarified with first and second violins divided at either side of the stage.
Composed for jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman, Copland’s Clarinet Concerto is one of his finest works. A dreamy, bluesy first section winds down for a solo cadenza that ignites some virtuoso fireworks before setting the final section dancing on its way.
Anthony McGill, principal clarinetist of the New York Philharmonic (and brother of former DSO principal flutist Demarre McGill, now with the Seattle Symphony), played most expressively, with plenty of pizzazz when called for. Luisi and the orchestra were right with him.
Faust’s parable of soul selling for earthly pleasures, and ultimate redemption by a woman’s sacrifice, inspired operas by Berlioz, Gounod, Boito and Busoni and symphonic works by Schumann and Mahler.
The three movements of Liszt’s Faust Symphony personify, in turn, the brilliant, restless and ultimately reckless Faust; his innocent love object Gretchen (sometimes called Margarete); and the wily tempter Mephistopheles.
Anticipating Wagner’s leitmotifs, themes associated with the two human characters are reprised and transformed with considerable sophistication. Mephistopheles, lacking his own themes, appropriates and distorts Faust’s. But the devil, as always, gets the most fun.
At the end, evoking Gretchen’s redemptive heavenly assumption, tenor soloist and men’s chorus sing the same Goethe words Mahler would use at the end of his Eighth Symphony: “All that is ephemeral/is but a symbol ... The Eternal Feminine/draws us ever upward.”
From mere shimmers, rustles and sparkles to great brassy proclamations, Liszt’s constantly shifting textures and tempos require fastidious attention to detail as well as drama — and a sure command of overall structure. Luisi was at his finest here, vividly characterizing, shaping and nuancing the music, and the orchestra put on a performance riveting start to finish.
Carl Tanner had the requisite heft, if not always precise intonation, for the score’s not very inspiring tenor solo at the end. A generous contingent of men from the Dallas Symphony Chorus, prepared by new director Anthony Blake Clark, sang warmly and, when appropriate, imposingly.
Details
Repeats at 3 p.m. Sunday at Meyerson Symphony Center, 2301 Flora St. $46 to $192. 214-849-4376, dallassymphony.org.
