{"id":508978,"date":"2026-01-11T17:33:34","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T17:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/508978\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T17:33:34","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T17:33:34","slug":"the-fort-worth-symphony-begins-a-new-year-with-french-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/508978\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fort Worth Symphony begins a new year with French music"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">FORT WORTH \u2014 \u201cThe Sounds of Paris\u201d was the title of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra\u2019s first classical program of 2026. In the company of bona fide Frenchmen Berlioz, Debussy and Ravel, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Chopin might have seemed an odd man out, but the proudly Polish composer lived nearly half his too-short 39 years in the French capital.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">Prefacing the Saturday night concert, at Bass Performance Hall, was another of the FWSO\u2019s appealing big-screen video introductions, this one by principal keyboardist Buddy Bray. (He might have added that the music would be best enjoyed without applause between movements.) And then the American National Anthem, which in this context seemed particularly out of place.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">With music director Robert Spano conducting, the concert proper opened with an oddly lifeless, aimless Ravel Pavane for a Dead Princess.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">As Ravel pointed out, it\u2019s not a funereal lament, but rather a dreamy little dance imagined for a young girl in a Vel\u00e1zquez painting. But Saturday\u2019s Pavane lacked direction or buoyancy, and balances weren\u2019t ideally gauged.<\/p>\n<p>News Roundups<\/p>\n<p class=\"dmnc_features-cta-social-article-cta-social-module__3beff secondaryRoman secondaryRoman-20 text-center text-gray-dark\">Catch up on the day&#8217;s news you need to know.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dmnc_features-cta-social-article-cta-social-module__8MgJa flex flex-wrap text-gray-dark secondaryRoman secondaryRoman-10 text-center justify-center\">By signing up, you agree to our\u00a0<a class=\"dmnc_features-cta-social-article-cta-social-module__lU9-l border-b border-gray-dark hover_border-0 focus_border-0 active_border-0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/help\/terms-of-service\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Terms of Service<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a class=\"dmnc_features-cta-social-article-cta-social-module__lU9-l border-b border-gray-dark hover_border-0 focus_border-0 active_border-0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/help\/privacy-policy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">Matters improved significantly in the Chopin F minor Piano Concerto (called No. 2, although actually composed before the nominal No. 1). With the Sarajevo-born, New York-based Pedja Mu\u017eijevi\u0107 as soloist, the performance was sensibly paced \u2014 although the finale seemed a bit cautious for the Allegro vivace marking \u2014 and thoughtfully proportioned.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">In music never meant to overwhelm \u2014 unlike that of Chopin\u2019s contemporary Liszt \u2014 Mu\u017eijevi\u0107 maintained a stylish reserve, dispensing fluid cascades of notes but never banging or booming. In orchestral writing mainly subservient to the piano, Spano and the orchestra were thoroughly sympathetic collaborators.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">Although I\u2019ve experienced a performance or two of Berlioz\u2019 sprawling \u201cdramatic symphony\u201d Romeo and Juliet, for soloists, chorus and orchestra, before Saturday I don\u2019t think I\u2019d heard the purely orchestral third-movement \u201cLove Scene\u201d played on its own. Berlioz himself was particularly fond of the movement, and from gentle lappings and glistenings to surges of passion, Spano elucidated the wizardry of orchestral colors and textures.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">The evening\u2019s pi\u00e8ce de r\u00e9sistance was a splendidly shipshape Debussy La mer. From evocation of sunrise to midday on the sea, with sonic glowings, glintings and glarings, to waves tossing and foaming, to elemental interactions of wind and water, Spano had a sure and sympathetic command of the score. One after another, every section of the orchestra did itself proud. It was an exhilarating performance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">Sound in Bass Hall continues to be compromised by the FWSO\u2019s drawing sound-absorptive velour curtains over all but one level of Bass Hall\u2019s side and rear walls. As part of the hall\u2019s original acoustical design, they are intended for amplified-sound events, not orchestral concerts. For the latter, they dull harmonic overtones and reduce the audience\u2019s sense of sonic envelopment. Make them go away, please.<\/p>\n<p>Details <\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">Repeats at 2 p.m. Sunday at Bass Performance Hall, Fourth and Commerce, Fort Worth. $32.50 to $113. 817-665-6000, fwsymphony.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT WORTH \u2014 \u201cThe Sounds of Paris\u201d was the title of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra\u2019s first classical&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":508979,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,1576,7371,40272,7372,7260,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-508978","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-classical-music","10":"tag-fort-worth","11":"tag-fort-worth-symphony-orchestra","12":"tag-fortworth","13":"tag-performing-arts","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-tx","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115877668673928562","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}