Long-form Wynton Marsalis gets a sterling exhibition from ISO's principal tuba

Anthony Kniffen had a helpful composer chat.

Wynton Marsalis has grown his musical footprint to become the Bigfoot striding across the jazz-classical landscape. His initial impact as a 20-year-old trumpeter seesawing between jazz and classical performance soon resulted in a decision to stick to jazz.

But in making that choice, the now 62-year-old New Orleans maestro as a composer has looked for long-form stature and ensemble splendor in a genre not known for sustaining long forms. Jazz packed with extended solo flights — a la John Coltrane — is not structurally substantial. So there often needs to be programmatic content, particularly on African-American themes, to provide breadth of expression. Marsalis' model has been Duke Ellington, notably in such works as "Black, Brown, and Beige" and "Harlem."

Marsalis made his mark on this tradition with "In This House, On This Morning," the Pulitzer-Prize-winning "Blood on the Fields," and "From the Plantation to the Penitentiary" — to highlight his desire also to make tough, significant cultural statements. 

Though I've not heard everything in his vast discography, even his strictly jazz compositions seem often to be hopeful of lodging a tune in the public's ear as firmly as Ellington did (though Duke's musical alter ego Billy Strayhorn has to be counted as part of that legacy). He has not succeeded in this yet, but he's established the kind of ensemble virtuosity that Ellington did with his bands.

For Marsalis, abstract music of extended length has been rarer, but still a solid category of achievement. So it was a treat to hear Anthony Kniffen take on the solo role in Marsalis' 2021 Tuba Concerto Friday night. That was the novelty on the program, repeated Saturday, for Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra patrons this weekend at Hilbert Circle Theatre. 

In four movements, the concerto settles upon Marsalis' penchant for interpretations of black culture through his uniquely schooled prism. The titles give a clue, and Kniffen's extensive remarks about the piece, in "Words on Music" and to the audience just before Friday's concert performance, explained the context of "Up!," "Boogaloo Americana," "Lament," and "In Bird's Basement." (I also think what the soloist said about the musical content of the concerto got too much into the weeds for the concert audience.)

Kniffen connected with the audience in spoken remarks and, more important, in his performance. The benefit he received in an hour-long-plus phone chat with Marsalis last Monday showed up brilliantly as he played the difficult piece. There were the climbing phrases of "Up!" to launch the piece, and along the way, some strong singing-playing duetting to recall the vocal energy of black-church worship. 

The second movement featured dance rhythms, including hand claps both imitated in the percussion and from string players setting aside their instruments. "Lament" extended Marsalis' interest in tone-quality contrasts, with a solo line for the bass section and in the way heavy triplet rhythms underlined the dominant feeling of woe. The finale lifted up the bebop inspiration with phrases characteristically ending on weak beats. And here in particular Marsalis' displayed his debt to Ellington's way of passing around material to unconventional blends of instruments.

Elsewhere the concert brought forward the excellence of guest conductor David Danzmayr. Friday's performance opened with an electrifying reading of Beethoven's "Coriolan" Overture. It featured an especially well-managed scaling back of the energy to a subdued, chastened conclusion. 

After intermission came an especially invigorated interpretation of Schubert's Symphony No. 9 in C major, about five minutes quicker than the norm. The masterpiece requires the conductor to keep the oft-repeated melodies and accompaniment figures interesting; momentum mustn't flag. The first movement opened with a rapid, though not headlong, "Andante" that led naturally to a surging "Allegro." In the second movement, in which the "con moto" part of the "Andante" movement heading was stressed, the brisk march tempo embraced that peculiar habit of Schubert in turning suddenly toward anxiety. The scherzo returned to the sociable Franz's sunny side. Throughout, I admired the eloquence of Danzmayr's left hand, as nimble and decisive expressively as an action painter's or a dancer's. The finale, enhanced by precise accents, was taken quite fast, but held together with collective unanimity and an implied declaration that here indeed is one of the great symphonic masterpieces.