Sunday, February 2, 2025

Familiar Faces at Detroit Symphony Orchestra

Photograph by George Nelidoff of composer Florence Price (circa 1940, Wikipedia page from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

Once again my wife and I enjoyed dinner at home while watching the latest “free live HD webcast” presented by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO). The program was of particular interest due to the two visitors for the occasion. The concerto soloist was violinist Randall Goosby, and the guest conductor was Christian Reif. During his tenure with the San Francisco Symphony (SFS), Reif served as conductor of the SFS Youth Orchestra. Goosby was one of the four SFS Spotlight Series concerts in the spring of 2022, accompanied at the piano by Zhu Wang. He then made his debut as an SFS soloist the following September, performing Florence Price’s D minor (second) violin concerto.

That concerto began yesterday’s DSO concert. I must confess that, because I encounter this music so seldom, it had pretty much vanished from memory. Nevertheless, the listening experience was as stimulating as it had been in the past. Goosby was also bold enough to include his encore explicitly in the program. This was his orchestral arrangement of “Adoration,” which Price had originally composed for organ and which Goosby had recorded in the setting for violin and piano on his Roots album.

This “Price pairing” was coupled with a performance of “Fantastica,” the title of Jimmy López’ fifth symphony. Reif introduced this music, explaining that it was inspired by Michael Ende’s fantasy novel The Neverending Story (Die unendliche Geschichte in the original German). This was a major literary undertaking, which eventually found its way to a television series. As might be guessed, that made for far too much content than could be carried by a single symphony. While López’ capacity for rich instrumentation was engaging, it was difficult to sustain attention across his multi-movement structure.

The intermission was followed by a pair of Russian selections. The first selection was “The Enchanted Lake” by Anatoly Lyadov, given the subtitle “fairy tale scene.” The Wikipedia page for this music includes the following quote from French musicologist André Lischke:

The whole bewitching effect is due to the texture of the instrumentation, to the harmonic metamorphoses, and to the figurations which translate the quivering of the water (divided strings) and the sparkling of the stars which are reflected there (flute, celesta), harp).

It would be fair to say that the music has more to do with scenery than with any fairy tale narrative. However, the duration usually runs for less than ten minutes, sufficient time to enjoy the composer’s diversity of sonorities without tiring of them.

“The Enchanted Lake” was followed by Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 131, his final (seventh) symphony, composed in the key of C-sharp minor. This provided a perfect opportunity to appreciate the DSO resources in their entirety. Reif managed that entire scope with a steady and confident hand. His chemistry with the musicians could not have been better. This work may not have presented Prokofiev at his finest, but Reif knew how to deliver it a manner that would sustain attention from beginning to end.

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