Texas Classical Review

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra opened its 2026-2027 season by welcoming guest conductor Jaime Martín for an exotic program. The lineup segued from Alberto Ginastera’s evocations of the Argentinian countryside (Four Dances from Estancia), the Dallas premiere of the Concierto Místico y Profano for guitar by Arturo Márquez, and closed with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s epic Arabian fantasy, Scheherazade.

Martín began the evening with the dances from Estancia, each of which reflects aspects of the Argentine countryside much as Aaron Copland’s popular ballets evoke the American West.

Full brass and timpani strokes opened the first dance, “The Land Workers,” as the DSO settled into a steady procession marked by angular melodies suggesting the relentless cycles of cultivating the earth.  Martín wrought a distinct contrast from the orchestra in the second movement, “Wheat Dance,” exhorting gentle undulations within the widely-spaced strings to evoke the equally wide landscape bearing the results of the workers’ efforts.

Brash outcries from the horns over a jagged accompaniment announced “The Cattlemen,” as Martín and the DSO captured a scene of rugged gauchos driving milling herds.  The finale, “Malambo,” featured the gauchos engaged in a traditional competitive dance set against a festive backdrop of roiling percussion punctuated by whoops from the horns before a sudden concluding strike from the timpani.

Guest soloist Pablo Sainz-Villegas introduced Márquez’s Concierto for Guitar and Orchestra by briefly discussing how the title, “Místico y Profano,” resonated with Márquez’s thoughts on bridging different cultures, which fueled his collaboration with the guitarist.

Despite the smaller orchestral forces employed for the Concierto, the first movement effectively captured the potential for friction and conflict.  Spurred on by Martín, the movement opened with a bustling, almost frenetic rhythmic figure containing intermittent pauses in which Sainz-Villegas played a strumming motif.  For the contrasting second theme, Martín reined in the incessant rhythms in favor of a more subdued tempo as rich strings accompanied the soloist, culminating in a dramatic crescendo by the strings in octaves before concluding the movement with a reprise of the opening material.

Sainz-Villegas’s guitar sounded rich, full and crystal clear, with a tone color that easily veered between the roundness of a dulcimer and the sharpness of a harpsichord.  His command of dynamics was equally remarkable as he effortlessly shifted between blending in with the orchestra and dominating the ensemble.

The unique soundscape of the second movement, with shimmering, ethereal strings and tolling tubular bell providing a sonic bed for a contemplative dialogue between Sainz-Villegas and Paul Hafley’s clarinet—reflecting the guitarist’s characterization of the movement as “a wonderful prayer of a mystical depth that takes you to places of introspection.”

The festive finale, built on a “Romanesca” pattern, saw a return to the rhythmic liveliness of the first movement as the guitar and orchestra traded increasingly embellished variations on a rollicking, Spanish-tinged melody.  Further enhancing the finale’s rhythmic vitality was its own striking soundscape owing to frequent doubling of Sainz-Villegas’s intricate guitar lines with a glockenspiel amid a background marked by pizzicato strings and percussion. Following the exuberant applause of the audience, Sainz-Villegas performed Recuerdos de la Alhambra by Francisco Tárrega for an encore.

For the second half of the program, the musical landscape shifted from the Americas to the Arabian Peninsula with Rimsky-Korsakov’s effervescent Sheherazade. Ostensibly based on One Thousand and One Nights, Scheherazade and her jealous husband, the sultan, to whom she regales her captivating stories in order to prolong her life; the four movements instead unfold in a series of musical episodes evoking fantasy and high adventure in an exotic setting. 

The DSO under Martín achieved this effect masterfully, adding imperiousness to the sultan’s bellicose brass opening that was answered by Scheherazade’s delicate yet seductive melody from Alexander Kerr’s violin.  Once these characters were established, the DSO proceed with repeated statements of the sultan’s theme, spinning it out alternately with statements of an overtly swashbuckling melody in a manner evoking Scheherazade’s spinning out her tales to entertain her spouse.

This pattern recurred in the subsequent movements, each consisting of a succession of themes serving as episodes. All are framed by dialogues between the sultan and Kerr’s violin as Scheherazade, which became bolder, more intense, and more virtuosic with each reappearance until the violin heroine concludes her story, bringing, the work and the evening to a peaceful conclusion.

The program will be repeated 2 p.m. Sunday. dallassymphony.org