MSO Liszt Symphonie Fantastique
It may be a while before the Milwaukee Symphony hosts something like Yuja Wang playing all five of Rachmaninoff’s piano concertos in a single night, but last weekend we got two back-to-back Liszt concertos and additional fireworks from the Symphonie Fantastique of Berlioz.
Back in 2009, I heard pianist Stewart Goodyear blaze through a Chicago recital of challenging sonatas: Barber, Beethoven’s Hammerklavier, and Scriabin’s Tenth. With that program he gained true virtuoso status in my mind, and it was heartening to hear him now in his current evolution. In Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1, his passagework was simply astonishing. The lightning-quick runs in the high register came off with ease and clarity. He excelled in the larger chordal sections too, especially the clattering octave runs that pervade this score. The slow movement was songful, and Goodyear brought a sensitive touch to the opening cadenza. Maestro Ken-David Masur brought the orchestra into focus in the finale, the movement with most equal balance between solo and ensemble. I enjoyed the vivid orchestral colors and Masur’s sense of lightness with the material. The piece ended with a bang; Goodyear actually stood up to hammer one of the last chords.
I’ve been impressed by some of the repertoire pairing choices at the Symphony this season, and Totentanz on this concert was another winner. It provided a Dies-Irae-quoting bit of the macabre in anticipation of Symphonie Fantastiqueand gave the audience what they wanted: Goodyear playing more Liszt. He brought a different character to this piece, with an intense tenuto sound in every solo passage. This made the gentler middle cadenza even more magical when he suddenly lightened his touch. The orchestra was very engaged, with the brass nobly heralding the Dies Irae theme at the outset. A faster dance section whirled with energy. One of Goodyear’s later cadenzas got a little messy in the spirit of abandon, and a couple of trumpet and horn solos were buried by the piano, but overall this was an exciting and entertaining performance. As an encore, Goodyear gave his fingers a break and played the slow movement from Beethoven’s Pathétique Sonata. His approach was laser-focused on the melody, with beautifully sustained lines and tasteful rubato.
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To me, Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique has always stood as the epitome of tortured-artistic romantic cringe in classical music history. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad piece! But if you’re not familiar with the story, the French composer pined after an Irish actress named Harriet Smithson, ultimately writing this symphony that portrays both his romantic yearning and nightmares in which he envisions his own execution and Smithson joining a dance of witches around his grave. The poor woman attended the premiere and agreed to marry him, but it fizzled out pretty fast.
Masur, with a particular affinity for Romantic repertoire, got a responsive orchestra under his direction. In the opening movement, Daydreams and Passions, he emphasized dynamic contrasts and shaded the spectrum of different emotions from passion to sweetness to angst. The evocation of a ball in the second movement was very polished, whether high or low strings leading the theme. A beautiful duet came from clarinetists Todd Levy and Benjamin Adler. The third movement’s duet of onstage English horn (Katie Young Steele) calling to an offstage oboe (Kevin Pearl) was lovely, and I liked the sensitive strings that eventually arrived, just barely audible under the woodwinds. This movement’s pastoral scene always felt a bit long to me, but Masur made the landmarks count.
In the famous March to the Scaffold, Masur got what he wanted out of each gesture, with exciting subito forte blasts. The brass section was especially grand here. I’ve always thought this movement doesn’t quite accurately portray its program, but who am I to say what the composer’s nightmare is supposed to sound like? Finally, the hallucinatory Witches’ Sabbath featured a fantastic woodwind choir in the jaunty folk tune. The whole affair ended with a great final blast of sound.
Really no complaints about the performance here. It was a terrific concert, tapping into a particular macabre strain of the Romantic era that yielded both dreamy melodies and action-packed thrills.
