De Waart leads engrossing concert

The Milwaukee Symphony, under music director laureate Edo de Waart, filled the Marcus Center with an engrossing program of American masterpieces Friday evening.

The concert opened with Aaron Copland’s poignant “Quiet City,” featuring orchestra members Margaret Butler (English horn) and Matthew Ernst (principal trumpet) as soloists.

"Quiet City," which began its life as incidental music for a play, came across the footlights as a deeply personal, soulful conversation between the two solo instruments.

Butler, positioned in front of the orchestra, and Ernst, positioned at the back of the stage, gave musically rich, deeply moving performances, handing phrases to one another with a seamless unity of sound that made it impossible at times to tell just where one’s sound began and the other’s ended.

De Waart and the orchestra gave a sensitive, responsive rendition of Copland’s haunting orchestral writing.

The program continued with Leonard Bernstein’s “Serenade after Plato’s ‘Symposium’,” featuring guest violinist Philippe Quint.

Bernstein’s seemingly autobiographical five movements, each distinct and completely engaging in character, move from a grand opening statement to a rather innocent-sounding second movement, an exuberant third movement, an introspective fourth movement and a heavy, dark, fifth-movement opening that explodes into jazz-infused energy.

Quint captured the character of the five movements with musical depth and a seamless combination of varied, flexible dynamics, colors and textures of sound, and articulations, sculpting those technical elements into mesmerizing communication.

The evening ended with a clean, beautifullyconstructed performance of John Adams’ “Harmonielehre” (inspired by German composer Arnold Schonberg’s harmony treatise of the same name), the 1985 piece with which he looked back at some of the giants of music history and inward at a pivotal, vivid dream.

De Waart and the orchestra, expanded from the small ensembles on the program’s first two pieces to a stagefilling throng, delivered an always forward-leaning, riveting performance.

They found musical power in repeated harmonies and rhythmic patterns, and the layering and diversity of instrumental voices, capturing hints of earlier composers’ music without affectation.

Their performance was answered with a standing ovation.