South Florida Classical Review

Baritone Thomas Meglioranza performed songs of Stravinsky, Saariaho and Schoenberg  in the New World Symphony’s chamber concert Sunday afternoon.

The New World Symphony continued its chamber music series on Sunday afternoon with baritone Thomas Meglioranza joining members of the orchestra for three modernist masterworks, framed by two infrequently-heard Classical masterpieces. 

If the rewards proved mixed, the program featured some superb performances, and presented a convincingly unified concept.

The concert opened with the Grand Octet in A flat major by Ferdinand Ries. Ries is best known today as one of Beethoven’s closest disciples, and this octet bears perhaps not-so-coincidental similarities with Beethoven’s “Eroica” symphony and “Emperor” Concerto. The work is structured as a dialogue between the piano and the rest of the group, placing it squarely in the Classical tradition of piano-led chamber works.

Pianist Shih-Man Weng stepped comfortably into the solo role, playing with charisma and command aside from some small technical inaccuracies. While a few passages in the first movement might have benefited from more rehearsal time, the ensemble played the majestic work with authority overall.

The core of the program featured Meglioranza in works by Stravinsky, Saariaho, and Schoenberg. The three are all ostensibly modernist composers, but each presents a powerfully different vision of modern music. (Stravinsky and Schoenberg had famous disputes during their lifetimes.) However, the three works chosen offered a singular vision, built upon poetry by Shakespeare and Petrarch.

Meglioranza opened with Stravinsky’s 3 Songs from William Shakespeare. Written in 1953, they were among Stravinsky’s first works to use the 12-tone technique devised by Arnold Schoenberg, who passed away two years prior. The dense contrapuntal writing closely echoes the songs of Anton Webern, an important source of inspiration for Stravinsky during these years.

Though the poetic texts come from remarkably different sources within Shakespeare’s oeuvre, each can be read as a poignantly ironic reflection on Stravinsky’s situation at that particular moment in musical history. The musicians deftly navigated the austere melodic lines, and Meglioranza’s clear declamation brought welcome character to this rather obtuse work.

The concert continued with more Shakespeare settings, this time drawn from Kaija Saariaho’s Tempest Songbook. Written over the course of two decades, the Songbook is described by Saariaho collaborator Aleksi Barrière as “an opera composer’s sketchbook […] a laboratory throughout her career of writing for the lyrical voice.” Her richly colorful scoring traverses the interstices between tone and noise, paralleling the hypnagogic world of Shakespeare’s play.

The musicians seemed to revel in this evocative sound-world, conjuring up vivid scenes as their timbres blended in the hall. These songs showed Meglioranza’s stunning expressive range, as he dug deeply into the perplexing characters of Caliban and Prospero.

NWS dean of chamber music Michael Linville directed the ensemble in both the Saariaho and Schoenberg works. Guitarist Eduardo Gutterres and mandolinist Victor Huls (an NWS alum) both showed impressive technical chops and musical sensitivity.

The second half opened with a rarely heard masterpiece, Arnold Schoenberg’s seven-movement Serenade, Op. 24. Written shortly after the end of World War I, the work maneuvers between various references to Viennese aristocracy, Austrian folk dances, medieval courtly love, German Romanticism, and fin-de-siècle expressionism.

The fellows offered an impeccable performance of this vexingly intricate work, highlighting not only its innovative formal aspects but its vibrant Mahlerian expressivity. One particular highlight was the fifth movement “Tanzscene.” Here the ensemble strung the audience through a delightful sequence of changing moods, characterized by shifting tempi and evocative orchestration. The “Lied (ohne Worte)” followed immediately after, marking the concert’s most intimately lyrical moment.

The concert concluded with a reading of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s Piano Quartet in A flat Major. The quartet proved an apt counterpart to the opening Ries work, with which it shares similarities beyond the key signature. Written in 1822 when the composer was only 17 years old, the quartet displays remarkable compositional maturity and artistic insight.

The musicians showed strong technical command, but Sunday’s performance felt somewhat superficial, missing the expressive depth that more seasoned performers might have provided. 

Baritone Davóne Tines joins fellows of the New World Symphony in a program celebrating poet Langston Hughes 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. nws.edu

Tines performs his Concerto No. 2: Anthem with conductor Kalena Bovell and the New World Symphony 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. nws.edu

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