UTAH SYMPHONY, Abravanel Hall, Feb. 20; second performance 8 p.m. Feb. 21, tickets at 801-355-2787, 888-451-2787 or www.utahsymphony.org
Augusta Read Thomas (Photo Credit: Young Lee)
Augusta Read Thomas has secured for herself a permanent place in the pantheon of American composers of the 20th and 21st centuries. She is without question one of the best and most important composers that this country has today. Her music has substance and depth and a sense of purpose. She has a lot to say and she knows how to say it — and say it in a way that is intelligent yet appealing and sophisticated yet extremely accessible.
She is known for her carefully crafted scores and colorful orchestrations. Thomas is adept at bringing out the very best in each instrument and each section. She also knows how to combine instruments to create stunning sounds; she plays with overtones and she shapes notes and phrases by finely tuned dynamics and accents.
All of this is present in EOS: Goddess of the Dawn, a Utah Symphony commission which the orchestra and Thierry Fischer premiered this weekend (Thursday in Ogden, yesterday in Abravanel Hall), and which is also being recorded for future release.
Scored for large orchestra with an expansive percussion section, EOS, which is dedicated to Fischer and the Utah Symphony, is a vibrant work, vivid in its painting of the sunrise and gorgeous in its overall imagery. It demands the utmost in precision to be effective and the orchestra delivered, giving a crisply articulated account. The many small and larger solo moments were also played with finely inflected lyricism. And throughout the approximately 17-minute piece the musicians, singly and as an ensemble, played with self assurance and virtuosity.
Fischer was fully invested in the work; his direction was well conceived and executed and underscored the intense drive and the almost restless energy that courses through the work, even in the slower, more reflective, middle section. He brought cohesion and seamless flow to his reading.
Baiba Skride (Photo Credit: Marco Borggreve)
Baiba Skride is once again the soloist this weekend, this time in Beethoven’s magnificent Violin Concerto, arguably the greatest violin concerto to come out of the 19th century and one of the composer’s finest orchestral works. It’s an ideal concerto in that the solo instrument and the orchestra work seamlessly together, as if one were the extension of the other.
Skride and Fischer proved that point Friday evening. After a bit of a tentative start in which Skride uncharacteristically appeared to be a bit unsure of herself, as if she were having a difficult time getting her nerves under control, she took charge and gave a wonderful reading that was infused with wit, charm and personality.
Fischer complemented her playing by getting the orchestra to emulate the warm expressiveness that she brought to the piece. It was an exceptional partnership that did justice to the work.
The concert opened with Prokofiev’s First Symphony, the so-called Classical, in which he conjures up the spirit of Haydn and imagines how the Austrian composer would have sounded had he lived in the early 20th century. It’s a delightful work that never gets old. The orchestra, under Fischer’s clear cut direction, gave a remarkably upbeat and joyful account that was infused with sunny optimism.