New double-bass concerto displays ISO's internal strength, collegial rapport

Ju-Fang Liu is also active as a teacher.

Ju-Fang Liu made a strong national impression early in her tenure as principal bass of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. Alex Ross, the distinguished music critic of The New Yorker, touring major orchestras around the country, praised Liu's playing of the famous double-bass solo that opens a movement of Mahler's First Symphony. 

She has built upon her fortuitous elevation to national media prominence by leading her section with aplomb in more than two decades since. Along the way, she got acquainted with  music by former colleague James Beckel, who retired as ISO principal trombonist in 2018.

Beckel's compositions have ranged across symphonic pops repertoire as well as contributing to "serious" modernism of a conservative bent. Across this spectrum, his style communicates well on first hearing, and he clearly knows orchestral sonority from the inside out, attesting to his near half-century as a first-chair player. 

The work Liu commissioned from him, after years of broaching the idea, carries the title "Memories in Time," with each of the four movements having a clearly indicated character related to significant memories that are built across time. The most moving of those to my ears was the third: "Memories of Taiwan — Spring Breeze." There Beckel makes use of a folk

James Beckel is a widely performed composer. 

song from the soloist's country of origin. It seems more than a folk-song setting; it's also a celebration. That becomes clear as the melodic line passes from high-register playing by the soloist to be shared imaginatively with the orchestra. The accompaniment has touches of both foreground and background as the movement proceeds.

Beckel's muse is largely a genial fellow, like the composer himself. So while it gives him access to deep feelings of the sort showcased in the third movement, it also shows up in tender, less nostalgic ways in the first movement. And the sprightliness that never seems far from a Beckel composition is acknowledged in the jazzy second movement, "Memories of Youth." Pizzicato articulation, the norm in jazz bass-playing, is shared by the soloist and orchestral string players. The blithe mood fortunately has something more than exotic coloring to it; on first hearing, it seemed natural both to Liu and to Beckel's well-honed creative side.

A traffic jam on Pennsylvania Street, apparently due to a Fever game at Gainbridge Fieldhouse just to the south, caused me enough delay that I missed the eight-minute 1952 piece that opened the Hilbert Circle Theatre concert: Julia Perry's "A Short Piece for Orchestra." But I was seated for the entire  Beckel world premiere (to be repeated at 5:30 p.m. today) and was glad for the opportunity. At the end, Liu was presented with a large bouquet by her section's assistant principal Robert Goodlett, the senior-most member of the orchestra. She insisted on sharing the flowers with Beckel, who was cajoled to mount the podium to bask in the ovation.

Guest conductor this weekend is David Danzmyer, an electrifying Austrian of extensive international experience. He made his ISO debut in 2022 with a brilliant Mahler Fifth Symphony. This time, after intermission, came another famous No. 5, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's. The celebrated horn solo that defines the second movement was warmly and  smoothly brought off by another veteran principal, Robert Danforth, to whom Danzmyer gave the initial solo bow during the curtain calls.

The best thing about Friday's performance was Danzmyer's generating from the orchestra an unsentimental reading. It was brisk but not slapdash. In fact, it seemed the conductor took pains to emphasize what a thoughtful, measured composer Tchaikovsky could be. When the great Russian wore his heart on his sleeve, here the listener is invited to admire a piece of well-embroidered craftsmanship.  

The finale in particular put the mounting tension in context, with passages that approached repose without ever losing tensile strength before the climactic reprise of the "Fate" motive.  Danzmyer signaled his interpretation subtly by linking the tender waltz of the third movement to the finale attacca (no pause), as if to impress upon the audience the cohesiveness of this masterpiece, mind and heart working together.