Gemma New’s flamboyant conducting didn’t help Dallas Symphony concert

From instances people first beat rhythms on hole logs and sounded tones on reeds, music has alternately soothed and stirred feelings. Three days after the horrific mass homicide in Uvalde, Texas, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra appropriately opened its Friday night time live performance with a chunk titled Memoria, by Irish composer Donnacha (pronounced “DAHN-uh-kuh”) Dennehy. It was its U.S. premiere.

“Memoria,” Dennehy writes, “is a chunk impressed by the best way folks (or our innovations of these folks) stay on vividly in our minds, even when they’re now not there in actual life. I’ve by no means felt this extra strongly than within the final two years, when greater than ever we’ve been made conscious of the fragility, preciousness, and precariousness of life itself.”

The feelings had been definitely well timed. However first, principal visitor conductor Gemma New surged out on stage all cheerful and upbeat, making no point out of the too-recent tragedy, as a substitute selling the orchestra and its subsequent season. A extra tone-deaf introduction was laborious to think about.

Eleven minutes lengthy, Memoria appears to fragment and overlap levels of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, melancholy, acceptance — in no linear order. Opening with unsettled sprinklings and pulsings, with shards of could-be melodies, it goes on to layer smearing and glowing results. Repeatedly, it rises in offended, drum-driven protests, however extra hopeful melodic impulses floor earlier than a hushed, if hardly resolved, ending.

Conducting considerably much less flamboyantly than the week earlier than, New made a persuasive case for the piece. Referred to as to the stage, the composer shared in apparently heartfelt applause.

The remainder of this system, on the Meyerson Symphony Heart, was an odd assortment of music. Ravel was represented as each composer (in Rapsodie espagnole) and arranger (of Mussorgsky’s Footage at an Exhibition). However Percy Grainger’s “Pastoral,” from his suite In a Nutshell, was a headscratcher within the center.

The Grainger typically suggests a practice of Twentieth-century English items evoking William Blake’s inexperienced and nice land. (Grainger, who lived from 1882 to 1961, was Australian, however finally took U.S. citizenship.) Issues quickly get extra sophisticated, with seemingly random overlaps of textures and gestures. Tuned percussion is distinguished, as is a piano. (Was it speculated to be that distinguished?) Properly, there it was.

At transient moments within the Ravel and Ravel-Mussorgsky, New diminished her gestures to manageable dimensions. However for essentially the most half she placed on a balletic show of daunting athleticism. There have been nice sweeps of arms, daring twists and crouches of torso. What there wasn’t — crucially, within the Spanish evocations — was readability and precision.

The “impressionist” label is a misnomer in music that requires actual rhythmic focus and finesse. Impressionist conducting is simply what an orchestra doesn’t want right here. From the viewers, it was particularly distracting to see monumental motions in actually quiet music. And the way did this system web page get printed with out the actions of the Rapsodie?

Each right here and in Footage, musicians hardly ever checked out New, probably for concern of being confused. Each items typically appeared to go on auto-pilot, and there have been precarious moments in each. Footage sounded extra crude than it ought to. “The Nice Gate of Kiev” made an imposing racket, although, with a bell threatening to drown out the remainder of the orchestra, and there was a roaring ovation.

Particulars

Repeats at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and three p.m. Sunday at Meyerson Symphony Heart, 2301 Flora St. $36 to $174. 214-849-4376, dallassymphony.org.