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Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra principal violist DJ Cheek performs Hector Berlioz’s “Harold in Italy” with the FWSO on May 22, 2026.<\/p>\n
Karen Almond<\/p>\n
The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra onstage for a concert at Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth on May 22, 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Scott Cantrell\/Special Contributor<\/p>\n
FORT WORTH \u2014 Friday night\u2019s\u00a0Fort Worth Symphony<\/a> concert, the last of the orchestra\u2019s classical season, was billed as \u201cAn Evening in Finland.\u201d Only the second half, though, was devoted to the best-known Finnish symphonist, Jean Sibelius. The first half featured Harold in Italy, a hybrid symphony-concerto by the tr\u00e8s French Hector Berlioz.<\/p>\n Actually, the program could have been titled \u201cTwo Pieces by Two Very Different Composers Inspired by Italian Visits.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u00a0As a winner of the Prix de Rome, Berlioz traveled widely in Italy during 1831-32, and scenes and folk songs he encountered inspired a number of subsequent works. In Harold in Italy, he imagined the solo viola as a traveler akin to the eponym of Lord Byron\u2019s Childe Harold\u2019s Pilgrimage. It was intended for the famous violin virtuoso Niccol\u00f2 Paganini, who also played viola, but the latter dismissed it for insufficient showiness.<\/p>\n Indeed, it\u2019s less a conventional concerto than a symphony with a semi-prominent solo viola part. Its four movements purportedly evoke \u201cHarold in the Mountains,\u201d \u201cProcession of Pilgrims Singing the Evening Hymn,\u201d \u201cSerenade of an Abruzzi Mountaineer to his Sweetheart\u201d and \u201cThe Bandits\u2019 Orgy.\u201d If the viola drifts in and out of a subtle spotlight, it\u2019s still a relatively rare solo outing for the alto of stringed instruments.<\/p>\n FWSO principal violist DJ Cheek underlined its strangeness by walking onstage well after the orchestral introduction, and walking off, then back on again, in the finale. Beginning with gentle, silken tone and expressive reserve, he summoned a darker, creamier sound for the pilgrims\u2019 evening hymn.<\/p>\n Make Dallas News a preferred source so your search results prioritize writing by actual people, not AI.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n