This weekend marked the opening of Ken-David Masur’s seventh and final season as Music Director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. The repertoire selected was colorful and extroverted, all but ensuring a spirited beginning to his farewell year. This was apparent from the opening notes of The Star-Spangled Banner, a quantity which American orchestras are wont to visit at the start of a season.
Beginning the program was the 2021 work by Swedish composer Andrea Tarrodi Festouvertyr (Festive Overture – a likely nod to Shostakovich). Just about four minutes in duration, this curtain-raiser functioned as an energetic warmup for the orchestra. Bold and clangorous, it boasted an iridescent orchestration and a cinematic quality that seemed to take cue from the likes of the Richard Strauss work that closed the evening. A theme from Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks was cleverly woven in, connecting it to a work from centuries prior that also served to celebrate.
Masur’s musical partnership with pianist Stewart Goodyear dates back to their student days at Tanglewood, and it was the fruits of this connection that made for a memorable performance of Ravel’s Piano Concerto in D major for the left hand. It’s certainly fitting to program Ravel during his 150th anniversary year, and a local outing of this concerto was long overdue – it has surprisingly not appeared on an MSO program in almost half a century. The dusky tones of the lowest pitched members of the orchestra began, perhaps mirroring the bass notes one associates with the left hand.
The piano entered by way of a fanfare, and it was remarkable what Goodyear was able to achieve with one hand alone: a thunderous range and a broad color palette. I was struck by his intense, unflagging concentration as his left hand, no longer confined to the lower register, spanned the length of the keyboard. More jocular material was given with a sharp rhythmic snap, morphing into a frenetic march amplified by brass and percussion. A lustrous cadenza further showed Goodyear’s fluid fingerwork before it drew to a resplendent close. As an encore, the pianist reunited his hands for the Aria from Bach’s Goldberg Variations, and its purity was a fitting antidote to the concerto’s cacophony.
Steeped in a tradition learned not in the least from his father, Masur closed the evening with a probing performance of Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben, a true endurance test for the orchestra. Bold, self-assured beginnings spoke to limitless possibility, and Masur’s energetic baton work marshaled the large orchestral forces. Unsettling material to represent the titular hero’s adversaries offered a sharp foil to shake the confidence of the opening. Intended as a portrait of the composer’s wife, The Hero’s Companion was both sympathetic and strong-willed, conveying a complex character by way of the extensive and demanding solo violin passages, played with aplomb by MSO concertmaster Jinwoo Lee.
Gaudy and brash as it may be, the battle scene that followed still proved to be one of the more thrilling moments in the repertoire. Instead of a more cliched triumph, the composer opted to retreat inward, reflecting on past works and searching for peace. A thought-provoking way to conclude Strauss' musical autobiography, it culminated in a stirring brass chorale that left the theater aglow.
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