With an artistic director forced to cancel in the middle of a weekend of concerts, duty called on his assistant conductor - and she clearly had done her homework.
Extreme dynamics explored in Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé and Boléro presented by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Jaap van Zweden, complemented by Louis Lortie's Mozart.
Dallas Symphony Orchestra, led by Jaap van Zweden and featuring baritone Matthias Goerne, performed music by Britten, Mahler, and Brahms, in a concert where not enough was ultimately said, despite a strong return from Goerne.
The Dallas Symphony, now in its sixth season under Music Director Jaap van Zweden, welcomed his predecessor Andrew Litton back to conduct a weekend of Stravinsky and Saint-Saëns (music from two ballets and a violin concerto, respectively).
For the first time in recent memory, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra presented a program this weekend without any blockbuster audience-favorite to be found on it.
After a series of Pops concerts featuring John Williams’ film scores, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra returned to standard classical fare this weekend with Canadian guest conductor Julian Kuerti. Debussy’s Ibéria never really got off the ground, but Mr Kuerti and the DSO had better luck in music by Joaquín Rodrigo and Prokofiev.
Capping off their two-weekend Mozart Festival, the Dallas Symphony played three minor-key masterworks this weekend, plus one major-key selection. Music in minor keys is the exception to the Mozartian rule – only two each of the 27 piano concerti and 41 symphonies are in minor.
Verdi and Wagner may be turning 200 in 2013, but certainly that doesn’t make their music any more or less worth celebrating than it was last year, or will be in five years’ time. So why not mix things up and mark a prime number here and there? In honor of a certain upcoming 257th birthday, Jaap van Zweden led the Dallas Symphony Orchestra this weekend in the first of two programs comprising the DSO’s Mozart Festival.
Mirroring the January ritual of all who indulge in one final dessert-binge before dieting to honor ill-fated New Year’s resolutions, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra got plenty of Romanticism out of their system this weekend before their Mozart Festival, set to last the remainder of this month. They hosted two young guest artists, conductor Pablo González and violinist Nicola Benedetti, for works by Dvořák, Tchaikovsky, and Brahms.
Two Viennese masters, Beethoven and Erich Wolfgang Korngold, shared the stage in the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s concerts this weekend. Maestro Jaap van Zweden conducted Beethoven’s Leonore Overture no. 3 and Symphony no. 5 in C minor, and in between these was joined by violinist Hilary Hahn for Korngold’s Violin Concerto in D major.
The Dallas Symphony Orchestra have had a couple of high-profile guest performers in town for their most recent series of concerts. They presented works by Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky, a piano concerto and a symphony respectively, in a program that, although disastrously designed, was redeemed by some stellar playing.
The fifth year of the Jaap van Zweden era at the Dallas Symphony Orchestra began this weekend with a program comprising audience favorites both flashy and serene. According to the printed program notes Mr. van Zweden, Music Director since 2008, selected “a program that demonstrates the superb technical and musical heights our orchestra has reached under his baton.
Christmas may have inspired much of the greatest holiday-related popular music, but in the Classical tradition, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion (to say nothing of his St. John Passion and Easter Oratorio) points toward the influence of Easter.
The Dallas Symphony Orchestra opened their latest series on Thursday with works by John Luther Adams, Schubert, Richard Strauss, and Shostakovich. The German baritone Matthias Goerne joined the DSO and Artistic Director Jaap van Zweden for a performance that was moving and powerful enough to far outshine a couple of puzzling managerial decisions.
It was your standard evening at the symphony: a brief standalone selection for orchestra, a flashy concerto, and, after intermission, a weighty symphonic masterpiece. Well, it seemed so on paper at least.
In a concert featuring two works of Richard Wagner (one a concert piece, the other an adaptation from an opera score), the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under conductor Jaap van Zweden made their biggest statements in works by Mozart and Debussy. The fascinating program paired the Wagner works, one in each half, with those of the supposedly more “demure” high-classicist and arch-Impressionist.
On the two hundred and fifty-sixth birthday of Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, a voice over the loudspeaker announced the arrival of the more succinctly-named Emmitt Smith to the stage of Dallas’s Meyerson Symphony Center. Mr. Smith, the legendary former Dallas Cowboys running back and Super Bowl MVP, in turn introduced the true man of the evening, Dallas Symphony Orchestra Artistic Director Jaap van Zweden, recently named Musical America’s 2012 Conductor of the Year.
Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu made a big impression in his début with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in a colorful program of Ravel, Chopin, and Stravinsky – Le Tombeau de Couperin , the Piano Concerto no. 2 in F Minor, Op. 21, and Petrushka, respectively.
The standing ovation seemed to come with a good-natured caveat: “…but you didn’t need to show off!” This opening concert of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s 2011-12 season presented a program of daunting scope, challenging both to the musicians and their audience, with Brahms’ Piano Concerto no. 1 and Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony side by side.
