In Wednesday’s (3/13) Dallas Morning News, Scott Cantrell reports from Amsterdam, “If there was ever a time to be proud to be a Dallasite, it was Tuesday night. In this Dutch city’s 125-year-old Concertgebouw, where the world’s top orchestras parade through one after another, where standing ovations are rare, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra got one after every piece it played. Roaring applause from the capacity audience began as music director Jaap van Zweden made his first descent to the stage, walking down a long flight of red-carpeted stairs as conductors always do here. On a stage where Gustav Mahler conducted 11 times between 1903 and 1909, the DSO has never played more electrically, or with as much finely finished detail, as in the composer’s Sixth Symphony. … This was also a triumphant homecoming for van Zweden, who was born and raised here. As a brilliant 19-year-old violinist, he became the youngest-ever concertmaster of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, whose home this hall is. … The concert opener was Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s luscious Violin Concerto. Both van Zweden and soloist Hilary Hahn had the most natural feeling for the music’s soaring effusions and pastel, perfumed reveries.”
Posted March 14, 2013
