To anybody of a certain generation Dallas spells JR Ewing Jr and the Southfork Ranch. But there’s more to Texas than oil. Dallas has its own symphony orchestra, with origins going back to 1900, and a line of illustrious music directors pre-dating Fabio Luisi that includes Antal Doráti, Sir Georg Solti and Eduardo Mata. Currently on a major European tour, this band of players sports as one of its star soloists Anne-Sophie Mutter.
Puerto Rican-born Angélica Negrón has been the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s Composer-in-Residence since 2021. Her 2008 piece What keeps me awake is a nod to fellow insomniacs about the darkness of the night and the torments of a troubled mind. Impressionistic string murmurs and ripples of metallic percussion which reached their apogee in a soulful lament was just about it: nothing very memorable here.
Since its premiere in 2021, the Violin Concerto no. 2 by John Williams has received a mixed reception. There is little that links this music to the composer’s long history of successful film scores, apart from atmospheric moments of anguish and foreboding. Despite the panoply of quite forceful percussion, making use of a wide variety of keyboard instruments, the orchestral contributions strike me as somewhat limited in range and inventiveness. Many of the effects, sometimes bordering on a Walton-like wistfulness, are repetitive and rarely hold the ear.
What dazzles, however, is the writing for the solo instrument. Over its four movements and playing time of 35 minutes, this is most definitely a display vehicle for Mutter. She remained the centre of attention throughout, not just in the many cadenza-like passages, sometimes duetting with harp and timpani, but in releasing the reserves of abundant and eloquent energy in the solo writing. Whether in the furious double-stopping of the Scherzo-like Dactyls movement or in more sweetly sinuous lines of reflection, a sparkling richness of tone was on display, the colours shifting and shimmering constantly like a kaleidoscope. Right at the very end she moved effortlessly into unknown celestial regions.
Tchaikovsky’s Symphony no. 5 in E minor was written simultaneously with one of his darkest works, the fantasy-overture Hamlet. There wasn’t much of an overlap in Luisi’s reading, which ploughed the course of one of the two interpretive schools that takes classical proportions, balance and strict symphonic argument as indications of Tchaikovsky’s most Brahmsian work. So no hysteria or hint of neurosis. Conducting from memory, Luisi’s view was entirely coherent and gave the full orchestra an opportunity to demonstrate its characteristics.
Even at 49 minutes, Luisi always kept things palpably on the move, with minimal pauses between the movements. Transitions were seamless and his elegant, batonless hands reinforced the balletic elements, a singing approach in the long string lines reflecting his Italian heritage. Not surprisingly, the two inner movements came off best. In the Andante cantabile Luisi didn’t exactly wear his heart on his sleeve, but you did hear it beating. The Valse exhibited all the graceful charm and good manners of a 19th-century ballroom. There was plenty of restraint in the Finale too, save in one respect. Any suggestion of Fate lurking in the background was blown away by the punchiness of the brass, measuring up like prize fighters to deliver knockout blows.
The sheer aggressiveness of this section was the overriding impression left by this concert. Workmanlike strings in the first half developed a degree of warmth in the symphony, without ever displaying the sheen of more celebrated US ensembles. The woodwind section remained largely colourless, with no distinctive solos or for that matter any satisfying blend. Luisi still has work to do.
