Invitation to the dance: ISO program is mostly about movement

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In the tango spirit: ISO concertmaster Kevin Lin 

Thematic unity helps symphony programs to cohere in attracting audiences, and who can resist the lure of dance underpinnings even when you're expected to stay in your seat for a concert? 
This is what unifies "The Rhythm of Dance," this weekend's Classical Series concerts by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. There's significant relief, however, in the inclusion of Schubert's deep-delving masterpiece in two movements, Symphony No.8 in B minor ("Unfinished").

The theme is carried out by Richard Strauss's magnificent, sweeping "Rosenkavalier" Suite, with its famous waltzes, by the "The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires," by the Argentine tango master Astor Piazzolla, and by "Dance of the Paper Umbrellas," an appetizer by the contemporary Uzbekistan composer Elena Kats Chernin, a piece of childlike buoyancy and tenderness similar to the Rossini/Respighi ballet, "La Boutique Fantasque." 

The attractive program package is under the vigorous, detailed guidance of David Danzmayr, an Austrian whose most extensive experience in this country is with the Oregon Symphony. Danzmayr has been a podium guest here twice this decade, both times with outsize masterpieces, Mahler's 5th symphony (May 2022) and Schubert's 9th (the Great C Major) (March 2024).

He keeps things moving, which was especially helpful in his last ISO appearance, conducting a work of "heavenly lengths" (Robert Schumann's phrase). Schubert's "Unfinished" is so consistently inspired that its impression of leisureliness is deceptive. The contrasts are stark and eloquent in how well they fit together..  

Danzmayr is clearly committed to the fully Romantic stature of the B minor symphony. Friday's performance was stunning, with each movement stamped with a distinctive emotional profile: "Allegro moderato" tragic and shadowy, the "Andante con moto" sunnier and with its assertive episodes more majestic than defensive. 

Late Romanticism at full throttle filled out the second half. I can't resist quoting program annotator Cynthia Stacy's masterly phrase about the launch of the "Rosenkavalier" Suite: "a flash of prurient horns," to be sure. She goes on to include just enough summary of the opera's action to clue listeners to the suite into the emotional (and motional) impact of this music. 

I was dependably moved Friday night by the evocation of the final duet between the destined lovers Octavian and Sophie, with some contribution from the Marschallin, resigned to accepting her transition beyond youthful ardor. "Ist ein Traum" begins the duet that melts me every time. And indeed it is a dream, a happy one of reassurance that occasionally things do turn out for the best. 

I''m reminded of an old New Yorker cartoon showing an old man, in his pajamas and obviously under the weather, emerging from his bedroom into the hall and making this request: "I know the doctor said this is probably only  a cold, but just in case, can you put on Side 8 of 'Rosenkavalier' one more time?" (In most LP collections of large operas, the eighth record side is where the finale, including that sublime duet,  resides.)

Summing up, those prurient horns were outstanding throughout Friday's vivid performance, and Danzmayr signaled solo bows to honor oboist Jennifer Christen, clarinetist Julianna Darby, and violinist Peter Vickery. When in full cry, the  ensemble never stinted the boisterousness of this aristocratic comedy about triumphant love. 

Vickery, acting associate concertmaster,  occupies the concertmaster chair for these concerts because the man holding that position is the program's featured soloist. Kevin Lin made the most of this opportunity's idiomatic prominence with a winning expanse of virtuosity and insight. The unusual vehicle was an arrangement of a Piazzolla score inspired by Vivaldi's evergreen "Four Seasons" of programmatic concertos. 

The arrangement, by Leonid Desyatnikov, goes off in all directions, some of which reach backward nostalgically to the 18th-century Italian's original. Much blithe yet demanding playing is required of the solo violinist. Lin showed his usual aplomb in displaying the depths to which Piazzolla  went in celebrating the iconic dance form of Argentina, the tango, while saluting  the pictorial richness of Vivaldi's set of four concertos. 

Cello soloing of the same high order as Lin's, but of a more languorous lyrical cast, was dispatched well by associate principal Jiyeon Kim. For an encore, Lin welcomed his stand partner Vickery to center  stage for a performance of a Wieniawski Caprice for two violins. It was not without its own embodiment of dance rhythms to fill out in miniature this weekend's theme. 



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