FORT WORTH — After two previous concerts that didn’t show the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra at its best, Friday night’s program at Bass Performance Hall was a welcome reminder of the orchestra’s excellence. In music of Mozart, Strauss and Sibelius, every section performed on a high level, although principal guest conductor Kevin John Edusei wasn’t always a persuasive interpreter.
Two of the orchestra’s principals, concertmaster Michael Shih and principal violist DJ Cheek, made Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat major the evening’s highlight. Both expert players, with Shih’s tone gleaming, Cheek’s glowing, they dispatched scurries and flourishes with aplomb. Lyricism was no less nicely served.
Clearly enjoying themselves, they had a sympathetic partner in Edusei, who kept the orchestra — with appropriately reduced string sections — on its toes. Just occasionally, though, winds and horns could have been more reserved in balances.
The Strauss Don Juan and Sibelius Fifth Symphony had comparable assets in power and projection. Apart from some high violin chatters not entirely tidy early in the Strauss, the playing throughout was assured and often exciting.
The tone poem’s randy opening, personifying the legendary lothario, was electrifying. At the other extreme, Edusei warmly shaped the dreamy middle section. Its oboe solo was delivered with melting tenderness by Jennifer Corning Lucio.
As with other Edusei performances, though, dynamics kept being nudged upward, and balances weren’t always ideal. Eugene Cherkasov’s smartly played violin solos weren’t given enough sonic space. Even some of the horn calls were more aggressive than necessary.
There can be great power in power reserved, released strategically and in careful proportions. Edusei too readily threw caution, and proportions, to the proverbial winds.
It was more of the same in the Sibelius, from an opening a little too forward for essential mystery — and magic. Later on, string tremolos were that bit too loud around Joshua Elmore’s bassoon solo.
Again and again, the music got too loud too soon to let the real climaxes have maximum effect. In a score whose structure is admittedly elusive — or should we say “organic”? — I sensed no overview, no compelling sense of how things should fit together and drive forward.
A stretch of string pluckings in the middle movement lost momentum. Toward the end of the finale, where those great tectonic plates of dissonance crash together, where you want the music to drive tensely forward, Edusei slowed down too much.
Was this actually a great performance to which I failed to connect? Will things come together more compellingly in one of the repeat performances? I don’t know.
FWSO concerts are now prefaced by video introductions by FWSO musicians, projected on a big screen over the stage. These do humanize the experience, but how much do we need to be told how great the upcoming music and performances will be?
Details
Repeats at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at Bass Performance Hall, Fourth and Commerce streets, Fort Worth. $26 to $99. 817-665-6000, fwsymphony.org.
