Conductor Fabien Gabel
For its last concert of the season, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra brought two classical music stalwarts together that couldn’t have been more different in form and substance despite the fact they were composed a mere four decades apart. Both were exceedingly well performed under the precise and exacting baton of guest conductor Fabien Gabel, music director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec.
The first half of the concert consisted of a bravura performance of Felix Mendelssohn’s tuneful and balanced Concerto in E Minor for Violin and Orchestra. For this, the soloist was Dutch violinist Simone Lamsma, who played the challenging central role in this lovely work beautifully. Like much of Mendelssohn’s output, his E minor concerto straddles the line between classical restraint and emotional romanticism; Lamsma’s take fell decidedly on the latter side.
After intermission came Gustav Mahler’s powerhouse Symphony No. 1 in D Major. Though not without its very quiet, gentle, even chamber music-like moments, this symphony—especially in its outer movements—wears its heart clearly on its sleeve. Scored for a very large orchestra, including two sets of tympani, tuba, gong, tam-tam, triangle and a battery of brass, this nearly hour-long work is a challenge to pull off correctly. Thankfully, the MSO under Gabel’s expert leadership magnificently brought out all its subtleness and grandeur; I especially appreciated the somewhat slower tempos Gabel took throughout the piece, thereby allowing the listener to hear the work’s textures all the more.
