Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra's 'Don Juan' is sublime

Keep an ear cocked to the woodwind section if you're heading to the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra concert today or Sunday at Bass Hall. Those instruments play an especially prominent role in the program.

On Friday, the entire orchestra played particularly well under the direction of guest conductor Giancarlo Guerrero, music director of the Nashville Symphony. Oboist Jennifer Corning Lucio played an extended, plaintive melody to calm the boisterousness of Richard Strauss' tone poem Don Juan.

And in Dvorak's Cello Concerto, all the woodwinds -- flutes, clarinets, oboes and bassoons -- harmonized in somber choirs and sunny dewbursts to give polished support to the mellow cello.

Daniel Mueller-Schott of Germany was the cello soloist. He is a protege of the star violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter.

His lower tones buzzed warmly like a hive of contented bees; higher notes sang with taut urgency. In sound and sense, the concerto's themes sometimes echoed the composer's famous New World Symphony; both pieces were a product of Dvorak's time living in America.

If Mueller-Schott seemed to push tempos a bit in the first movement, giving the music an unwanted nervous energy, he settled lovingly into the golden phrases of the Adagio. The finale began heartily, then shifted into a nostalgic mood. Cellist and orchestra blended warmly to create a mood of tender reflection.

The orchestra played sublimely throughout Don Juan. Individual parts are at times devilishly difficult, but the ensemble always sounded as if it were one giant instrument. Guerrero caught the grand sweep and effervescent spirit of the music.

The piece burst into exciting turbulence. Horn calls rouse the senses, which were then set tingling by bright, hopeful chords.

In a thoughtful bit of programming, the performance opened with Mozart's overture to his opera Don Giovanni -- music based on the same Don Juan legend as the Strauss.

But the Mozart's menacing undertone foreshadows the opera's moralistic message, not the poetic romance captured in Strauss' tone poem.

Concertgoers Saturday and Sunday will also hear Liszt's Les Preludes, which promises to be a scintillating addition to a well-played and satisfying program.