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closeSaturday, Nov. 22, 2008
Modern problems
The Fort Worth Symphony tackles 20th century masterworks with a few off notes.
By SCOTT CANTRELL
Special to DFW.com
FORT WORTH — The mere mention of the words 20th-century music, sadly, will send many a concertgoer fleeing for the exits. But, in addition to the gnarly stuff, there is such a thing as populist modernism in music, as proved by this weekend’s Fort Worth Symphony program.
It also plays to Music Director Miguel Harth-Bedoya’s strengths: taut discipline and rhythmic discipline. The Prokofiev Fifth Symphony got the best music-making in Friday’s opening performance at Bass Hall.
Composed in the waning months of World War II, the symphony beats drums of militarism in the finale and occasionally piles on brassy dissonance. But the music makes plenty of room for good tunes, and there’s no mistaking the final triumph.
Harth-Bedoya surely built each movement’s tensions, and the orchestra played splendidly. The symphony’s violins continued to amaze, and once again principal clarinetist Ana Victoria Luperi supplied particularly telling solos.
Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G was less satisfying. Pianist Ingrid Fliter had no problem dominating the orchestra, but at the price of a hard-edged tone. The outer movements were quite brisk, the finale challenging the winds to keep up. Just because a pianist can play this fast doesn’t mean she should.
In the slow movement, Fliter didn’t manage to make a melody of its right-hand note, and the tinkly reprise had no magic. Even the English horn’s tune got drowned out by too heavy a touch on the piano. The orchestra played competently, but a couple of wind players seemed to have cranky reeds.
Subsequent performances will also include the Bernstein Candide Overture.
2 p.m. Sunday
Bass Performance Hall
$10 to $78
817-665-6000
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