FORT WORTH — It was worth the ticket price, and then some, to hear Gerald Wood Friday night at Bass Performance Hall. I can’t think I’ve ever heard the big horn solos in Mahler’s Fifth Symphony more stirringly, more elegantly played than by the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra’s principal.
His fellow horns played splendidly, too — as did the rest of the orchestra under music director Robert Spano. Spano isn’t a physically elegant conductor: He beats time more than visibly shaping the music. But the level of detail in Friday’s Mahler betokened great attention and careful rehearsal.
The program also included the world premiere of a double concerto for trombone and piano by Arlington native Kevin Day. It opened with river sings a song to trees, a tone poem by Jennifer Higdon, one of today’s most performed American composers. The composers appeared onstage to share applause at the ends of their pieces, and Higdon gave a friendly video introduction to hers.
Composer, conductor and jazz pianist, Day is a Texas Christian University alumnus who’s done further study at the universities of Georgia and Miami. His considerable output includes orchestral, band, chamber and solo works.
Departures is a co-commission by the FWSO, TCU and the International Trombone Association, meeting May 29-June 1 in Fort Worth. Before the Day performance, the FWSO was presented the association’s Orchestra Recognition Award, honoring its support of trombone performance and literature.
Nineteen minutes long, Departures is unapologetically populist — nothing wrong with that. The opening “New Horizons” mingles music jolly, lyric and angularly jazzy. “Confrontation” belies its title with aria-like writing for the trombone, until some slashing strings intervene. After a flashy cadenza comes the nimble “Dance Hall,” which does indeed dance.
The unusual scoring was for the soloists, who perform as a duo. Trombonist Peter Steiner displayed dazzling virtuosity, but he also showed how sweetly his instrument can sing. Pianist Constanze Hochwartner was technically capable, but the part wanted more projection and pizzazz. Spano and the orchestra seemed capable collaborators.
Higdon’s modernist-impressionist piece, 17 minutes long, is the middle movement of her 2002 triptych City Scape, inspired by her early years in Atlanta. On first hearing, its stream-of-consciousness effects, twitters and tremolos, hints at melodies, accumulations and dismissals of sound eluded at least one listener. It was also one piece too many in a concert that lasted two and a half hours.
In the Mahler, horns (splendid as they sounded), trumpets and timpani were sometimes too loud in balances. And winds weren’t always fine tuned.
But this was some of the finest playing I’ve heard from the FWSO, with confident trumpet solos from principal Kyle Sherman and cellos in particularly fine fettle. Spano obviously had cultivated sensitive details of timing and shape within irresistible momentum. The famous Adagietto was exquisitely tender, accumulating ardor, but never sentimental.
I wish the audience hadn’t applauded after the first three movements. But FWSO programs are printed in such minuscule type that you can hardly tell there are multiple movements.
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.
