Recent arts coverage:
Four indie arts space typify the DIY attitude in East Austin | In visceral installations of Teresita Fernandez ask viewers to look - at look again | Follow @artsinaustin on TwitterAustin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2009 > May > 04 > Entry
Review: Peter Bay conducts Dan Welcher’s Fifth Symphony with flair
Finally — on the eve of its centenary — the Austin Symphony Orchestra made a gesture this past weekend that actually gave the organization somewhat of a timely and relevant burnish as a resident of the ‘Live Capital Music of the World.’
The orchestra premiered Dan Welcher’s Fifth Symphony, arguably the first time in living memory — or ever? — that ASO has premiered a symphony by an Austin-based composer.
And what a heartfelt musical gesture on Welcher’s part from: His Fifth Symphony was written for his good friend of three decades, ASO conductor Peter Bay who conducted it with brio, sincerity and passion.
There was no doubt that at least some in the audience Friday night found such a premiere thrilling with Welcher receiving heartfelt cheers and a very considered standing ovation.
Such a reception was deserved. Welcher’s Fifth is a 21st-century symphony for Austin: urbane, expressive, filled with touches of whimsy and expansively American in its artistic references.
Welcher’s far too mature of a composer to have quoted directly from his American composer predecessors. But the past century of American music percolated intelligently and originally throughout: A bluesy riff, syncopated rhythms, bold percussive turns, vigorous melodies and confident brass chorales balanced against moody swirls of woodwinds.
Most delightful was the second movement, Scherzo. In it, Welcher produced the most sophisticated musical impression yet of Austin’s famed colony of Mexican free-tail bats which fill the city’s evening skies. The woodwind melody, altering in its harmonic modes, skittered into a great cloud that was then countered by blasts from the brass section.
A more reflective and melodic third movement crossed seamlessly into the final fourth movement in which everything — the swirling woodwinds, the brass chorales, the driving rhythms, the bluesy riffs — built into a brilliant burst that ended with a bright flourish. A perfect ending.
But after intermission, the evening seemed to diverge into a totally different mode - not necessarily a bad divergence, just a marked one.
Star violinist Sarah Chang delivered every inch of star performance of Bruch’s Violin Concerto No 1. (interestingly the same piece the now 28-year-old phenom played for her audition at Julliard when she was a mere six-year-old).
Chang made the Bruch rhapsodic, giving it lyricism even though the piece does little to hide its profile as a soloist’s showpiece. Though her assertive virtuosity was at sometimes odds with the orchestra’s less propulsive thrust, Chang brought on an expressive voice.
Then the program’s mood shifted again with Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio Italien, a lively piece full of 19th-century colloquial character that the orchestra clearly relished.
If anything, this weekend’s program, while noteworthy, revealed ASO’s greater disconnect from the very musical culture of its place and time.
Little if anything was done by the ASO management to specifically market Welcher’s piece to Austin audiences. It shouldn’t have had to share the limelight with a celebrated soloist.
And that strategy is curious, because a premiere by an Austin composer would have been an obvious means for ASO to connect with potential new and younger Austin audiences who wouldn’t normally connect with most of the symphonic repertoire ASO typically offers.
In fact, Welcher’s commission fee was paid for not by ASO, but by an independent consortium of private donors in a fundraising drive spearheaded by non-profit classical music radio station KMFA-FM. Welcher gifted his symphony to ASO in honor of his good friend Bay.
What a wonderful gesture — one that Bay, no stranger to open and forward-thinking programming, took up with honor.
It leaves to wonder how much ASO management has invested in what noted music scholar Joseph Horowitz, author of “Classical Music in America,” identifies as the over-esteemed “culture of performance” — a value system that holds above everything else celebrated soloists playing a very Eurocentric, or at least very typical and expected, classical repertoire. Where’s the confidence in the symphonic music being created here and now?
Would that ASO’s management reconsider its connection to its place in a music capital so much of the world already esteems for its progressiveness.
Comments
Click here to report comment abuse.
By Folks leave early
May 5, 2009 2:12 PM | Link to this
Like it or not, lots of folks do not return after the guest artist has performed. Going first up meant everyone in the hall got to hear Dan’s work. And bravo to him. Loved it.
By DB
May 5, 2009 10:14 AM | Link to this
I also thought the program order was totally off. Why begin with Welcher’s symphony? That would have been a much more fitting send-off. Maybe I’m just used to the old program order of overture-concerto-symphony, but I do think Welcher’s work deserved the best slot on the program.