In Thursday’s (6/7) Dallas Morning News (subscription required), Scott Cantrell writes, “If there was ever a time to be proud to be a Dallasite, it was Wednesday night at the Meyerson Symphony Center. In a city that likes to promote itself as world-class, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra put on a world-class show—and for a demanding audience, including around 1,000 orchestra management personnel, music dealers and related venders in town for the national conference of the League of American Orchestras. Music director Jaap van Zweden framed two American works with two of music history’s most visceral expressions of sheer ecstasy, both from operas. It’s become fashionable to see how slowly one can play the Prelude and Liebestod from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, but van Zweden kept the music moving quite purposefully.” A suite from Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier was included, along with John Adams’s 1993 Violin Concerto with Jennifer Koh. “Rounding out the program was the 2008 Rhapsodies by Steven Stucky. Ten minutes long, this is a crescendo-decrescendo essay in textures, some of great complexity, rather than thematic contrast or development. Van Zweden and his charges managed every twitter, rustle, swirl, burble and chatter with assurance and élan.”
Posted 8, 2012
