Photo Courtesy of The Wisconsin Philharmonic
Conductor Alexander Platt led the Wisconsin Philharmonic last Saturday evening in a concert featuring music—as violinist Ashley Rewolinski described—lying within “an experience where elements of reality and imagination are blurred.” As such, the concert, “Fantasmagorique,” was a delightful diversion into classical and contemporary orchestral music’s darker themes.
Contemporary music was featured in the form of film music by one of Hollywood’s most sought-after composers, Danny Elfman. The concert opened with music from his score to Spider-Man. Also performed were themes from his evocative scores to Batman and Edward Scissorhands. The concert concluded with several excerpts from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s beloved musical, The Phantom of the Opera. All the above were played with great enthusiasm by the orchestra under the precise direction of Maestro Platt. But that said, I found the intermixing of these pieces with the classical works a tad juddering. Maybe I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to these things, but it was a little hard to aurally and temperamentally transition right from Batman to César Franck’s Le Chasseur maudit or from Spider-Man to Franz Liszt’s Marche hongroise from “La Damnation de Faust.”
The highlight of the concert was a magnificent ride through the aforementioned symphonic poem—and a truly gripping work of late romanticism—Le Chasseur maudit, from 1882. Platt mentioned having a particular liking for its composer, and it showed. Here’s hoping to hear more Franck from this fine conductor and orchestra in the near future.
