How does what you see impact what you hear? I was contemplating that on Friday evening at Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (MSO). For The Flying Dutchman, the cellos were back to the more traditional position of audience stage right and down front. This week, the set-up returned to a configuration instated by Edo de Waart, with the second violins in that area, the cellos behind them and the violas behind the first violins. The combination of my ears/eyes would be happier if the violins were all together on stage left.
MSO concertmaster Frank Almond makes a well-deserved solo appearance with the orchestra each season. For this concert, we first heard him in Deux Portraits (Two Portraits), Op. 5, by Béla Bartók. The first movement, “Une idéale” was written for a young violinist that Bartók was in love with. Almond played with the warmth required by the music. The lover broke up with the composer after the first portrait was written. The second movement is “Une grotesque,” a bitter and ironic waltz, played with bite and character.
I remember―or at least I think I do―Almond playing Maurice Ravel’s Tzigane with MSO in 2002. He was then playing a different Stradivari violin, one with a slimmer and sweet tone. The gorgeous, rich low range of the instrument he now plays shone in the free solo opening. Lots of full sound came forth, seemingly without effort. Almond continued this showpiece with characteristic elegance.
Carlos Kalmar returned to MSO as guest conductor, leading a satisfying account of Richard Strauss’s youthful tone poem Don Juan, a portrait of the notorious lothario who eventually dies in a duel. This colorful music featured arresting solos from Katherine Young Steele (oboe) and Todd Levy (clarinet), as well as delicious sounds from the horns.
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I think the reasons are self-evident why Antonín Dvořák’s “Symphony No. 6” is not often programmed. The first two movements can politely be described as a long sit. Only in the third movement do things liven up. Kalmar was best in this Scherzo, when he seemed to do less; the players responded well to that approach.
