James Lee III’s “Captivating Personas” — a BSO commission receiving its world premiere — reflected on four paintings by 19-year-old Baltimore painter Quinn Bryant. And the closer, Ottorino Respighi’s “Pines of Rome” opines on the epic spectacle of its titular trees.
But this program, situated at summer’s edge, also provided opportunity for reflection on Heyward’s inaugural season as the BSO’s music director — a seven-week introduction that found the young conductor easing into his post at the podium and slowly introducing his affinity for mixing the old and the new. Substantial programs of Wagner, Barber, Strauss and Mahler were balanced by the works of 16 living composers.
Next season, a clearer picture of Heyward’s programming proclivities begins to emerge, as he peppers in a number of lesser-heard 20th century composers through his 12 weeks with the orchestra, including Carl Nielsen, Bohuslav Martinu and Witold Lutosławski. The conductor will also launch his own four-year deep dive into Verdi’s operas with a full concert staging of “Aida,” starring Angel Blue and Jamie Barton.
But this season-capping concert was as good a reminder as one could ask for that Heyward brings something special to his players in Baltimore. Saturday’s program was a thoughtfully selected and often thrilling glimpse of an orchestra moving confidently into a new phase.
Montgomery’s “Records from a Vanishing City” references the literal record collection of the family friend to whom it is dedicated. Thus, its musical surface is constantly swirling with unexpected colors and rhythms — shades of jazz, classical, avant-garde and Caribbean music overlay and tint each other with neighborly ease. (The work is particularly inspired by a traditional Angolan lullaby and responsorial chant.)
It’s a beautiful piece of music, and Heyward nudged it toward stunning, making deft, delicate work of its finely woven opening, ribboned with clarinets and shrouded in gauzy strings. Streaks of trombone hung over busy bass and claps of percussion as Heyward ramped up the tempo and intensity. A kaleidoscopic thrust of horns introduced a gorgeously prolonged passage of softly breathing strings and silky solos from Harrison Miller on bassoon, Andrew Balio on trumpet, Jaewon Kim on clarinet and Holly Jenkins on violin.
This softer side of the orchestra extended into Strauss’s “Four Last Songs” of 1948, powerfully sung by a deeply invested and wonderfully expressive Goerke, who couldn’t help but inhabit the songs as an actress. Goerke recently made news with her announcement that she’d be stepping down from an impactful three-year tenure as Detroit Opera’s associate artistic director; and Saturday’s performance made me grateful that she’d be spending less time in the back offices.
I’m not sure I’ve heard a soprano fill Strathmore with such sound before: full, beautifully sculpted — and skillfully chipped where it counts most. How perfectly she captures the fearful awe (or awful fear) and defiant wistfulness of these songs as their seasons turn cold and their lights wane. Heyward wrapped the orchestra around her, letting the flutes and clarinets of “September” surrender to climbing strings and leaving room for gorgeous violin solos.
Even in “boundless silent quietude,” Goerke found ways to shine — like the hopeful glances she sent to the twittering larks of piccolo at the close “Im Abendrot.”
The world premiere of Lee’s “Captivating Personas” was augmented by large projections of paintings by Bryant, whose sumptuously painted portraits of Black women combine classical portraiture with a photographic-feeling candor.
Lee’s four movements — “Power,” “Attitude,” “Bored Comfort,” and “Breath of the Victorian Scape” — directly referenced four of Bryant’s paintings, and wryly evoked their thick brushstrokes, deep colors, historical echoes and unabashed optimism. A thick wall of trombones and horns was punctured by beautiful plumes of bass clarinet and piccolo in the first movement. Marimbas and trombones seemed to suggest the sublime side-eye dealt by the muse of “Attitude.” Catastrophic strings and brass over urgent timpani broke into glimmering harps and chimes in “Bored Comfort.” And in the finale, Heyward played up the contrast between Lee’s mechanistic churn and Bryant’s sinuous figuration.
The BSO’s closing performance of Respighi’s “Pines of Rome” was performed as a tribute to BSO trombonist John Vance, who retired one year ago and died suddenly in February of this year, “after a typical 2-3 mile run around his neighborhood in Ellicott City, MD,” according to his obituary.
This lent an extra charge to the sextet of trumpets and trombones perched in the upper tiers — not that they needed it. Their entrance toward the end of the suite was a blast so jarring I wrote on my shirt. From beginning to end, it was a demonstration of the BSO’s steadily building powers under Heyward — a sound as crisp, clean, big and bristly as the towering trees of its title. For anyone listening, the BSO is an orchestra scraping the heavens, and Heyward could bring them within reach.
