In Friday’s (5/8) Dallas Morning News, Scott Cantrell writes about “an unusual Dallas Symphony Orchestra program of 18th-century music by German and Austrian composers. On paper, it was an odd assortment: a Beethoven scena for soprano and orchestra followed by Bach’s E major Violin Concerto (BWV 1042), the Haydn Trumpet Concerto and Mozart’s Haffner Symphony (No. 35 in D major). Featuring two superb DSO musicians as soloists, it wasn’t repertory we’ve associated with music director Fabio Luisi, who was on the podium. The first three pieces were performed, appropriately, with relatively chamber-orchestra forces, although the Mozart got more of a big-band approach. An audibly enthusiastic audience rewarded every piece with a standing ovation. The Beethoven is a miniature operatic scene … It made no sense in the program’s context until an aha! moment in the slow movement of the Bach…. As elegantly, exquisitely played by DSO co-concertmaster Nathan Olson, that Bach slow movement had the feeling of a tender, elaborately inflected operatic aria. Olson dispatched the outer movements with silvery tone, technical finesse and sophisticated shaping. Both he and the reduced complement of DSO strings applied vibrato sparingly, on long notes here and there, as 18th-century treatises advocate. Luisi gave the music spring and suavity.”
