October 11, 12, and 13, 2024
Bass Hall
Fort Worth, Texas – USA
Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Robert Spano, conductor; Allan Steele, cello.
Claude DEBUSSY: Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun
Robert SCHUMANN: Cello Concerto in A minor
Hector BERLIOZ: Symphonie fantastique
Gregory Sullivan Isaacs | 14 OCT 2024
The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra presented an astonishing concert this weekend (heard on Saturday night) in the acoustically superb but slightly Victorian surrounds of Bass Hall. The level of playing in this orchestra continues to astound by its remarkable growth during my tenure in the Metroplex. The program was a challenging one, but they exceeded any expectations all evening.
The opening selection, Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, received as fine a performance as you would hear anywhere. Indeed, it was the most memorable selection of the evening. Music Director Robert Spano kept his sometimes overly precise gestures close to his chest so as not to distract from the gossamer performance he was creating. The piece is a showcase for the flute, and Principal Flutist Jake Fridkis was amazing.
Fridkis began the famous opening unaccompanied solo passage from seemingly nowhere but let it rise and fall, using dynamics and the different sounds of the instrument’s registers for expressive purposes. Oboist Jennifer Corning Lucio and clarinetist Stanislav Chernyshev also delivered standout performances, as did the horn section. Further, the perfectly in-tune treble ding of the antique cymbals added icing and dimension to the gossamer ending. When it was over, Spano remained motionless for a short while so that applause wouldn’t break the spell. During the deservedly appreciable audience ovation, Spano waded through the orchestra to personally recognize Fridkis.
Schumann’s cello concerto followed, with Principal Cellist Allan Steele as soloist. It was a dreamy performance, with Steele smoothing out some of Schumann’s edges and ignoring some of the composer’s admittedly controversial tempo indications. However, Steele made an acceptable case for his more languid approach with his gorgeous tone and sure intonation. His encore, the “Allemande” from Bach’s C major Cello Suite, was beautifully played but a more upbeat selection would have shown us another side of his craft.
FWSO principal cellist Allan Steele performs Schumann’s “Cello Concerto” with Robert Spano and the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. (credit: Karen Almond)
The final work on the program was Hector Berlioz’s bizarrely fabulous Symphonie fantastique. Written in the desperate heat of being rejected by his love interest, the Shakespearian actress Harriet Smithson, and liberally supplemented with doses of opium, this work is an exploration of his impending madness. More importantly, Berlioz explores a possible future of orchestral writing in the wake of Beethoven’s already-shocking expansions.
Spano and the Fort Worth Symphony delivered a magnificently realized performance of this strange work closely allied to the composer’s elaborate intentions. He outlined all this in an extensive program note he wrote to explain the piece. FWSO included it in the printed program, but in an unreadably teensy-tiny typeface. (Projected supertitles would have been welcome and much more helpful.)
The first movement conveyed a sense of foreboding that was finally realized in the fantastical witches’ sabbath that concludes the work. Here, Berlioz paints a drug-infused scene of his own death by the guillotine, his satanic funeral, and his march to eternal damnation. In a final coup de grâce, a vision of his unrealized beloved floats gloatingly above the proceedings. (An aside: Smithson relented after hearing a performance of this work, and they were married, but, alas, they eventually separated.)
In addition to Spano’s careful and dramatic pacing, the orchestra performed well throughout. In the “Scene in the Country” movement, the conversation between the English Hornist Tim Daniels and oboist Corning Lucio (who was positioned offstage), was particularly haunting. The large, deep-toned church bells that rang, prepared the way for the tubas and bassoons to appropriately croak out the Dies Irae, an ominous chant from the Requiem Mass. Spano’s careful use of dynamics along the way saved the full orchestral firepower for a thundering ending that sonically filled Bass Hall to its rooftop. ■
EXTERNAL LINKS:
- Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra: fwsymphony.org
- Robert Spano: robertspanomusic.com
- Allan Steele: fwsymphony.org/about/musicians/allan-steele
Read more by Gregory Sullivan Isaacs.
