fortress worth Symphony closes its classical season with a musical travelogue: Hungary, Spain and Russia

regrettably, it struck me as a unusually dead performance. however the piece itself has on no account struck me as greater than pleasantly inoffensive. Sáinz Villegas got here alive in a flashy encore, a Gran Jota by Francisco Tárrega, however the drumming outcomes outstayed their welcome.

Scholarly arguments continue over Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony. turned into it genuine penance for the outrages of his opera woman Macbeth of Mtsensk, which had drawn a threatening rebuke in a Soviet newspaper? became it definitely, because it was subtitled, "A Soviet Artist's purposeful creative Reply to just Criticism?"

Or  become it, in 1937, a coded critique of the brutality and inventive repression of Stalin's Soviet Union? Is the finale's ostensible rejoicing in fact compelled?

Listening Friday evening, i was convinced that the piece is shot through with cynicism. Its militarism appears about as celebratory as these corrupt, grotesque soldiers portrayed with the aid of the German artist George Grosz. definitely, the second movement is a parody of peasants dancing in lack of information of the murderous regime beneath which they had been residing. The sluggish move seems a lament for misplaced innocence.

That a efficiency might fire up such ideas, might make a listener re-evaluate a well-known piece, is no small compliment. the opening become careful, when it would had been uneasy, however thereafter Harth-Bedoya and the orchestra brought the song vividly to existence — and, the place applicable, fashioned it sensitively. 

there were first-class solo contributions from Mi chael Shih (violin), Jake Fridkis (flute), Tamer Edlebi (oboe), Stanislav Chernyshev (clarinet), Kevin hall (bassoon) and Molly Norcross (horn).

Repeats at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and a pair of p.m. Sunday at Bass efficiency corridor, Fourth and Commerce streets, citadel price. $22 to $97. 817-665-6000. fwsymphony.org.

formerly personnel classical song critic of The Dallas Morning news, Scott Cantrell continues to cowl the beat as a contract author. Classical music coverage on the information is supported partly via a provide from the Rubin Institute for track Criticism, the San Francisco Conservatory of song, and the Ann and Gordon Getty basis. The information makes all editorial choices.