Roving tuba quartets and gospel vocals with orchestra made for a breezily eclectic musical mix at last week’s Grant Park concerts.
But while two offbeat local premieres were the featured musical novelties, it was the high-voltage musicmaking of the Grant Park Symphony under Isaiah Jackson’s inspired leadership in Rachmaninoff’s familiar Symphony No. 2 that sparked the most musical excitement heard so far this summer.
After the train wreck heard under James DePriest last season at Orchestra Hall-due in no small part due to the artless vivisection DePriest inflicted on the score-it was doubly delightful to hear such a sumptuous, impassioned performance of Rachmaninoff’s marvelous work as that heard Thursday evening.
With technical ability and an unapologetically romantic sensibility, Jackson was clearly well-suited to convincingly carry off the composer’s large-scale symphonic structure. From a daringly spacious opening, Jackson led the orchestra through the hills and valleys of the Russian composer’s sprawling late-Romanticism with consummate skill. Throughout the hourlong work, Jackson gave Rachmaninoff’s warm melodies room to expand, leading unerringly to each musical climax while avoiding excessive bombast.
Despite a stiff, reedy opening clarinet solo, the long-breathed lyricism of the slow movement-heard in its full heavenly length-was heartbreakingly beautiful. Jackson’s elegant, long-armed coaxing seemed to pull the maximum lyrical intensity from the gloriously rich Grant Park strings, molding Rachmaninoff’s long paragraphs with loving skill and controlling the ebb and flow of the musical waves masterfully.
A sizable contingent of the 750 tubists in town for the tuba/euphonium conference at Northwestern University showed up for the local premiere of John Williams’ Tuba Concerto.
Written more in the amiable popular vein of his film scores than the more astringent Violin Concerto, Williams’ engaging 1985 concerto has two sharply rhythmic outer movements framing a central Andante.
With tight and alert support provided from Jackson, Grant Park Symphony tubist Fritz Kaenzig made the best possible case for the work, lively and virtuosic in the syncopated sections, playing with subterranean lyrical warmth in the Andante.
Less successful was Carman Moore’s “Gospel Fuse,” heard Friday evening, which featured veteran vocalist (and mother of Whitney) Cissy Houston. Moore’s 1974 work is an unconvincing hybrid of gospel and classical, lacking both the melodic inspiration and execution of decent classical and the sweaty intensity and spiritual fervor of genuine gospel music.
After a dry and hesitant start, Houston’s vocals loosened up some, but with Moore’s damp and soggy musical wick, no musical fireworks were ignited.
