Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s ‘American Voices’

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Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s ‘American Voices’

The Milwaukee Symphony’s “American Voices” concert continued a great tradition of spotlighting our country’s own classical music legacy. When we turn our attention to American symphonic works, it’s a good time to reflect and ask: what are our values? What does this art say about the American experience? 

In Maestro Ken-David Masur’s opening remarks, he referred to music’s power of reconciliation and fostering compassion. These traits were inherent in the first two pieces, which conveyed the impact of two great men in American history, both associated with civil rights: Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait, with its narration quoting the eponymous president, can feel at times like a film soundtrack underlining a patriotic speech, but its earnestness and effective composition defy criticism. In this performance, the ensemble started hesitantly but soon found its footing. The first big tutti had a mighty sound, and the gentler theme afterward was played very sweetly. The folk tune section developed with fine energy and with great contributions from the brass. Narrator Laura Snyder, a longtime member of the MSO’s bass section, was simply wonderful. She had a great feel for the text and emphasized lines for maximum effect.  

A stirring moment came at the text about right and wrong and common rights of humanity vs. the divine rights of kings: “… whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.”  

Hearing this, it was impossible not to recall this week’s news of the current American president literally referring to himself as a king. By the Gettysburg Address section, Snyder was digging even deeper into Lincoln’s words: “…that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.” The orchestra achieved great power at the climaxes, and hearing a Black woman deliver these famous words was uniquely moving. It was a memorable, timely performance of this work, met with a standing ovation. 

From the Mountaintop 

Stylistically different but still wholly American, Richard Danielpour’s clarinet concerto From the Mountaintop (titled after a phrase from MLK’s last sermon) took us into the world of the 1960s civil rights movement. The MSO’s own Todd Levy was an excellent soloist throughout. In the jazz-infused first movement, his clarinet was always clear and pure, leaning nicely into bluesy inflections amid brash orchestral stingers. Maestro Masur conducted this music with much animation, crouching down during quiet suspenseful parts. The self-contained cadenza movement, with the clarinet phrases answered by timpani tuning up, read to me as an evocation of King’s last sermon, with the timpani conveying the murmured assents of the congregation.  

Whether or not that was the composer’s intent, I loved it. Levy played especially expressively here, showing the full range of the instrument, and with beautifully delicate high notes. The third movement, mostly somber and with some complicated moods, was a bit long and hard to penetrate at times. Nevertheless, the final moments gave me shivers. Danielpour achieved a high wire act here, paying tribute to King, creating a concerto with effective tableaus of the individual and the masses, and with a musical idiom that was fresh yet tuneful. 

The Ives fan in me selfishly wishes the second half of this concert had been Ives’s Fourth Symphony, which could have ended things on a profoundly spiritual note. But it’s an extremely difficult piece to mount. Maybe someday. The Second Symphony is a transitional work where Ives was still working within a fairly traditional symphonic template, but you can hear him feeling restricted by the form, wanting it to be something more. In the first movement, Masur showed a fine sense of the architecture and the yearning quality of the material, and made it sound almost Brahmsian in its argument at the moments of peak intensity. In the second movement, the duets between oboes and flutes came across very sweetly. There was a real sense of optimism and American striving by the end of this music, all the fragmented popular tunes fighting for control. The Adagio was sensitively played, with a satisfying final chord. No nitpicks about the short fourth movement, which reprises some material from the first. The finale’s horn and cello solos were beautifully played, and the brass had a lot of fun with the bold march tunes like “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean.” 

The whole evening was satisfying, but the performance of Lincoln Portrait in this concert is going to stay with me for a long time. Music can do and say a lot on its own, but something about the explicitness of the text with rousing music just made it a uniquely powerful statement for the moment.