The Jazz Age lives again in colorful Dallas Symphony program
Guest conductor Juanjo Mena led the Dallas Symphony Orchestra Thursday night in a program of works by George Gershwin, Bela Bartók and Maurice Ravel that reflected the varied orchestral colors and stylistic diversity that marked the 1920s.
Ravel’s Bolero and Bartók’s ballet suite from The Wooden Prince both employ the resources of a large orchestra to shimmering, impressionistic textures and variegated sounds, while George Gershwin’s Concerto in F explores the then-exotic style of symphonic jazz much as Bolero evokes the idealized and remote atmosphere of Spain.
Gershwin’s concerto comprised the first half of the program and soloist Jean-Yves Thibaudet perfectly captured the spirit of the piece. The Concerto in F is strongly reminiscent of Gershwin’s other celebrated works of orchestral jazz, notably Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris. Thibaudet’s playing sparkled in the syncopated rhythms, pentatonic melodies and blue notes that mark Gershwin’s style. Thibaudet displayed dexterous flair as he executed the frequent hand-crossing, rapid scales and occasional glissandi that characterize the piano part.
Thibaudet’s enthusiasm wasn’t always matched by the orchestra; Mena’s accompaniment started off the evening somewhat stiff and didn’t quite match the suppleness of Thibaudet’s rhythms. Mena also appeared to have some difficulty balancing the orchestra with Thibaudet, and at climactic points in the outer movements, the soloist was rendered virtually inaudible.
With better balancing and lighter scoring, the middle movement was the most successful, as Thibaudet was joined in the movement’s meditation on a pair of doleful themes with bluesy interjections from trumpeters Stuart Stephenson and L. Russell Campbell, oboist Erin Hannigan and flutist Hayley Grainger. Thibaudet responded to the enthusiastic ovation with a sensitive encore of Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte.
Following the intermission, the orchestra featured The Wooden Prince suite, based on Bartók’s 1914 ballet about a young prince who attempts to attract a princess despite facing repeated barriers from a mischievous fairy. The suite consists of seven dance episodes, each marked by dazzling orchestral combinations and textures that evoke the magical obstacles set before the prince: an ominous forest, a rushing brook, and a “wooden prince” fashioned from the prince’s own staff and cloak. The large orchestra and novel instruments called for by the piece, notably added winds, two harps and celesta, hinted at truly dazzling combinations and textures indeed.
The prelude seemed promising, beginning with a low drone and gradually adding instruments to create swirling rhythms and colors not unlike the prelude to Wagner’s Das Rheingold, culminating in a bold melody sounded by horns and cellos amidst a cloud of shimmering strings
The rest of the suite did not fare quite as smoothly. Although the rhythms in each dance were more spirited and flexible in response to Mena’s more active direction on the podium, balance between sections was frequently off again, particularly within the more dynamic dance movements depicting the forest and the brook. The sustained gossamer strings and added sparkle of glissandi in the harp and cello were often overshadowed by thick brass, rendering the sound somewhat muddy and unclear.
Ravel’s Bolero—which, unsurprisingly, received top billing in the program—closed the evening. Starting softly, Mena set the piece in motion, from the solo stare drum playing the omnipresent theme to the solo flute, clarinet, bassoon, English horn, and trumpet – before initiating the instrumental accretions that would build the intensity of the piece.
At this point, Mena’s gestures mirrored the growing volume of the sound coming from the orchestra as the successive reiterations of the main melody issued forth in their varied instrumental combinations with perfect clarity.
The program will be repeated 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. dallassymphony.org
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