Special Night at Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra

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Photo by Jonathan Kirn via MSO - Facebook

Setting up the bells for Takemitsu's "From me flows what you call Time"

Setting up the bells for Takemitsu's "From me flows what you call Time"

In his opening remarks at this concert on Saturday night, Maestro Ken-David Masur said something that I don’t recall hearing from him before in these exact words: “We have a very special program for you.” And he meant it.

So what was so special about it? Well, the MSO was about to perform Toru Takemitsu’s From me flows what you call Time for the first time in over 20 years, with the help of Third Coast Percussion and added percussionist John Corkill. Masur acknowledged the still-new hall, noting, “It’s important to do this piece to explore the space with all our senses.” The rest of the program? Debussy and Dukas. If there was a connecting theme, it would be pure sonic luxuriance.

After Dukas’ Fanfare pour précéder La Péri heralded the evening with brilliant, hall-filling sound from the MSO brass, it was time to enter the unique sound world of Takemitsu. The setup for this piece included colored ribbons tied to the conductor’s podium, connected to bells and chimes positioned in balcony boxes on both sides of the stage. Sonora Slocum performed the opening flute solo with the right character to enter the mystical mood. When the percussionists entered and began playing the instruments, which spanned a wide array of world cultures, I was amazed at how great they sounded in the hall. Every percussive note resonated with clarity and life. Because of the extended percussion-only sections, I felt I could appreciate the orchestra with new ears. The strings sounded lush and dark after a lot of bright vibraphone and glockenspiel. Of the percussion material, highlights included a solo from Third Coast Percussion’s Robert Dillon on a rack of gongs and bells, and a later duet between a hand drum and set of (I think) toms. The piece ended with two percussionists pulling on the ribbons to activate the faraway chimes, letting them ring until the sound died completely after a full minute. Overall, the MSO presented this music very well and offered moments of great beauty. The only detracting factors were lots of coughs and sneezes from the audience and a few percussion cues that didn’t quite land in sync.

French Impressions

The tone poem triptych Nocturnes by Debussy had the potential for pure French Impressionist bliss, but this performance didn’t really break the mold. It’s one thing to present special repertoire, but there’s the extra step to make it special. Nuages had pleasing mellow English horn solo playing from Margaret Butler, and the orchestra created pretty sounds, but the interpretation felt a bit surface-level. Fêtes could have a been a bit more fun overall but improved as it progressed. The loud full tuttis had a grander sense of occasion. Sirènes got the best reading of the three. Masur handled dynamics well, and Margaret Butler again excelled with the prominent English horn part. The MSO Women’s Chorus performed ably, adding a halo around the orchestra’s sound. I started to feel some real passion in the later builds, as the music occupied the same mystical, searching space as Takemitsu. I hope that connection clicked for the audience. This was another sonic world that was hard to leave.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the famous tone poem of Paul Dukas that appears in both Fantasia and Fantasia 2000, is both a great piece on its own and also hard to extricate from that context. Part of the problem is that the performance tempos from both those films have become quite ingrained in my brain, and they just feel right. Anything that deviates too much becomes distracting to me. And the MSO’s performance certainly deviated. The introduction was too fast; where was the tension of building up those great chords from bottom to top? Then the scherzo proper came in slower than I would like. It just didn’t have that briskness that made me want to skip along like Mickey. Of course, the piece still sounded great on a sonic level, with good detail from all orchestral choirs. And I will admit that the final pullback before the final iteration of the melody (the most extreme rallentando I’ve ever heard at that spot) was kind of awesome. A final complaint about this performance: the single string pizzicato note after the climax was not together. I’m only mentioning it because it’s one of the most important single pizzicato notes in the standard rep.

Every piece on this program was worth hearing live. The Takemitsu in particular is one that you may only get to hear once in a lifetime, and its energy is healing and refreshing. Since I’m less familiar with the piece, it’s harder for me to judge the accuracy and compare it to other interpretations. But the French second half was definitely uneven. Maybe my expectations were too high. With such special repertoire, sometimes you want not just to hear it, but to be blown away.