Review: Dallas Symphony in Texas Classical Review
Women composers, musicians take the spotlight in Tali’s DSO program
By William McGinney. Nov 02, 2024
The Dallas Symphony Orchestra under the baton of guest conductor Anu Tali delivered an engrossing program Friday night featuring music of Amy Beach and Alisson Kruusmaa, closing with Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations.
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Although highly virtuosic, the piano part was characterized more by full chordal sonorities and broad gestures than dazzling passagework, allowing soloist Anne-Marie McDermott to cast the instrument as a true partner in dialogue with the orchestra. The DSO under Tali’s sure direction provided both a strong backdrop and vigorous foil for McDermott.
The first movement set the terms for their conversation, with bold statements in both forces culminating in a dynamic cadenza that served as the climax of the movement.
Although the lighter tone of the following scherzo movement provided a contrast with the mood of the first, the energy between parts remained constant, evident primarily in the headlong motion of McDermott’s piano figures that had the orchestra in close pursuit.
The Largo opened with ominous tones in the low brass that set the temper of the movement as a whole. Tali’s fervent gestures matched McDermott’s impassioned yet subdued tones, both carrying the third movement directly into the finale, during which McDermott then unleashed the piano part’s overtly dazzling Lisztian side.