There are many factors beyond orchestral conducting in choosing the next music director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. But based solely on the music making and chemistry with the ensemble I witnessed on Saturday evening, French conductor Fabien Gabel might create an exciting future with MSO as it prepares to move into its own concert hall in 2020.
Gabel showed astounding musicianship, technique and versatility in a diverse program that included Ludwig van Beethoven’s Concerto No. 5 (“Emperor”), Leonard Bernstein’s Fancy Free, Florent Schmitt’s Rêves, and La Valse by Maurice Ravel. The orchestra played with heightened attention, as if ready for some new journey of discovery, with Gabel as a sophisticated, sure-footed guide. At 42, he is currently music director of the Quebec Symphony Orchestra, and has guest conducted at many major symphonies, with a rising career and profile. He seems ready to be music director of a major orchestra. But is MSO interested in this match? Is Gabel interested? I await those answers with hopeful and intense interest.
Swiss pianist Louis Schwizgebel gave a pedestrian account of the Beethoven concerto. Pedaling was a bit blurred, and he tended to constantly lean forward on the tempo. I missed hearing any soulful intent. The audience cheered, which seemed a response to the masterwork itself rather than to this performance of it.
Earlier in the week I heard a wonderful evening of chamber music at Frankly Music, a concert held at Schwan Hall at Wisconsin Lutheran College. Frank Almond paired with pianist Adam Golka in Birds in Warped Time II by Japanese composer Somei Satoh (b. 1947), creating a meditative, impressionistic mood.
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Philip Glass wrote Songs and Poems for Solo Cello for Wendy Sutter, and we were lucky enough to hear her in this stirring rendition, played with rich sound and expressive freedom. All three artists joined for an elegant, sweeping performance of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovky’s Piano Trio.
I wonder if we realize what we have in the standards set by Frankly Music concerts? These would be greeted warmly in any music capital in the world.
