Singing expands MSO concert

Vocalists both delicate, dynamic

What a concert program looks like on paper, and what it sounds like in a performance, can be two very different things.

Saturday evening’s Milwaukee’s Symphony performance of three disparate pieces by Respighi, Poulenc (“Gloria”) and Schumann (Symphony No. 4) was just such a concert.

Led by guest conductor Christoph König, the orchestra opened the program with Respighi’s Overture from his largely forgotten opera “Belfagor,” which premiered in 1923.

König and the MSO gave the dramatic overture a clean, thoroughly engaging performance, crafting beautifully nuanced phrases within an exciting interpretation of the larger work.

Soprano Yulia Van Doren, as well as the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus, joined König and the orchestra for a riveting performance of the six-movement Poulenc “Gloria,” which premiered in 1961.

The chorus, prepared by chorus master Cheryl Frazes Hill, gave a nimble, deeply musical performance. From cleanly executed staccatos to crisply highlighted syncopations, deft dynamic shifts and a controlled urgency, this was fine choral singing.

Van Doren created a mesmerizing blend of expressive delicacy and commanding singing. She created a fragile, pleading sound in spots, moving to a soaring, ringing sound elsewhere. She executed simple lines and large leaps with equal ease, using a decrescendo on several upward leaps to create breathtaking musical moments.

The orchestra brought a wealth of colors and textures to the Poulenc, while playing with a constant awareness of, and support for, Van Doren and the chorus. Particularly well executed were the orchestral chords inserted, as musical punctuation, into long choral lines near the end of the piece.

Leaping backward to the Romantic era, König and the orchestra filled the program’s second half with Schumann’s Symphony No. 4. Built of four movements, the piece was played, as Schumann intended, without pause.

König and the players captured its melodic and harmonic richness. They let the harmony overtake the melody in dynamics in spots, and then let the melody take the lead again. This was a performance full of forward momentum and urgent music making, if a few uncertain string entrances and some uneven brass sounds.