Inspired program concludes ISO classical season

Jun Märkl:  an illuminating first season

 Lots of extra attention has been paid to musicians' focusing on their concerns about the state of the world. Inevitably this can confirm their popularity and the sense of engagement music-lovers have with them. In the pop-music field, it's easy to be scolded with "stay-in-your-lane" criticism, and yet the extra attentioncitself can boost an artist's profile.

The strength of thematic programming in classical music opens doors for such overtures to be well-received, though texts that serve a political or topical purpose are much rarer in the classical repertoire. Care in programming amid concern for the stresses of contemporary life is fully present in the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra's  classical finale, marking the end of Jun Märkl's first season as the orchestra's music director.

The German  maestro had the wit and compassion to set Arnold Schoenberg's "Friede auf Erden," an a cappella choral work written in the war-torn 20th century's first decade, to open concerts carrying the title "Peace on Earth."  It is repeated today at Hilbert Circle Theatre and tomorrow afternoon at the Payne & Mencias Palladium in Carmel. The venerated major piece in these concerts, Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor ("Choral"), ensures that the program will draw big audiences three times. The partnership of the two works is confirmed by the triumph of joy as the emotion that's universalized as the badge of peace in human affairs.

Friday's opening concert found the hall packed, the audience at the end rising to a full-throated ovation. The performance had the electrifying zest the ISO's eighth music director has dependably brought to concerts this season, as well as the attention to detail that has allowed audiences to "hear into" the scores better.

For example, the variations that the first violins spin out of the slow movement's main theme were tenderly well-defined. That whole movement had the repose needed to make its attenuated interlude between the frisky scherzo and the overwhelming finale, with its climactic "Ode to Joy," all the more special and suggestive of the "peace on earth" theme. 

That scherzo, placed innovatively by the composer in the second position rather than the conventional third, had rip-roaring galvanic force Friday, marred only by what seemed to be premature horn notes before the first section's repeat.

The opening movement showed how useful the division of the violins on opposite sides of the conductor can be in revealing the counterpoint of the two sections in the development. The subtly swelling crescendos on transitional phrases were another sign that the music was being viewed all of a piece, with such details serving as building blocks in making the structure complete.

In the finale, Märkl drew from the basses and cellos the most vigorous  statement possible of the recitative-style music that bass soloist Kevin Deas would later answer with the response Beethoven himself penned to introduce his famous setting of Schiller's "Ode to Joy." And when that melody was first enunciated it was with those same lower strings sounding quietly confident, with a lovely bassoon countermelody soon to promise the hoped-for peace of the finale.

The solo quartet — besides Deas, soprano Heidi Stober, contralto Lauren Decker, and tenor Thomas Cooley — handled their brief, difficult passages together with aplomb. The tenor projected well the exuberance of the episode that amounts to a street-band variation of joy.

Most important, the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir acquitted itself well, balanced and distinctive from section to section. The exaltation of "Seid umschlungen, millionen" that becomes the most religiously declarative part of the symphony showed the singers, prepared by artistic director Eric Stark, at their expressive heights. The strain under which Beethoven put his sopranos never resulted into anything threadbare or screechy in tone. 

It's this level of excellence that made the ISC's tackling of the Schoenberg piece well within its capabilities. Stark chose a slightly smaller version of the choir to help guarantee that placement of the work's phrases at the edge of tonality would remain secure. Without accompaniment, the music lacks the usual tonal guidelines that can make even more conventional a cappella choral singing challenging.

Translated texts were provided on a screen above the stage for both works. It was a pleasure to hear the clarity of the singers' diction in "Friede auf Erden," with its overlapping phrases and avoidance of melodic repetition. It's no surprise that this was the first performance of the work on an ISO program, and the ISC is nearly as old as the orchestra, which will celebrate its centenary five years from now. The whole concert was among the mounting evidence that the orchestra and its affiliated choir are at their highest level ever.