FORT WORTH — Gosh, that was an enjoyable concert.
Opening its 2024-25 classical series, the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra was in fine form Friday night at Bass Performance Hall. Led by Robert Spano, starting his third season as music director, every section of the orchestra played with pizzazz where called for, well-bred finesse everywhere.
Repeat performances get a big “buy” recommendation. But dress warmly; at least Friday, Bass Hall’s air conditioning was in overdrive.
The standard rep program was a wise choice to get the orchestra back in shape after a summer break. Right from the start, the Berlioz Roman Carnival Overture set the high standard for the Sibelius Violin Concerto — with James Ehnes — and Tchaikovsky Pathétique Symphony that followed.
It was a long concert — two hours and 20 minutes — and could have dispensed with the Bach unaccompanied Sonata movement Ehnes played as a second encore. Concertmaster Michael Shih’s video introduction could have been shorter, too. And there was the National Anthem, briskly dispatched by the orchestra and lustily sung by the audience. But the FWSO consistently proved itself a very fine orchestra, and Spano obviously had worked a lot on detail and proportions.
Ours is not an age that values subtlety, or strategic reserve. In musical performances, forte markings in scores too often get realized as fortissimos, pianissimos as mezzo-fortes.
That was emphatically not the case Friday night. There were pianissimos at the edge of audibility — pianissimos to make you sit up and really listen — and subtle nuances of piano and mezzo-piano. Even in the Tchaikovsky, brasses really blazed only in just the right places, but were otherwise kept in careful balance. Decrescendos were at least as gripping as crescendos.
After a warmly intoned English horn solo from Tim Daniels, the Berlioz fizzed, flickered and fluttered, whipping up just the right rowdiness. A hushed trombone entrance was magical.
In the Sibelius, Ehnes had the most sympathetic and responsive collaborators in Spano and the orchestra. From elemental hushes to muscular exertions and brassy explosions, the FWSO itself seemed a force of nature.
It’s hard to imagine a finer solo performance of the Sibelius than Ehnes’. From wisps of sound pinpointed on high to dazzlingly precise runs and busy scrubbings that never got raw, there seemed nothing he couldn’t produce at the highest level. In the unaccompanied Eugène Ysaÿe Sonata No. 3, played as an encore, he made the most fearsome challenges seem effortless.
I’d last heard the Pathétique three months earlier in Vienna, played by the Dallas Symphony under Fabio Luisi. Luisi daringly pushed and pulled the first movement’s lyrical second theme, and generally heightened contrasts. Spano’s was a more centrist performance, less extravagant but thoughtful, well-proportioned, engaging and enjoyable start to finish.
Principal clarinetist Stanislav Chernyshev spun lines out of sonic nowhere, and edged them back into nothing, with impressive control of breath and reed. The opening bassoon solo was beautifully played by George Sakakeeny.
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.
