Andreas Delfs can be an excitable conductor, which sometimes results in careening tempos and momentum at the expense of clarity. He struck the right balance with his reading of Richard Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra Friday n
ight at the Marcus Center. The music is much too dense to gallop through, but Delfs also resisted the temptation to stop and linger over Strauss’s gorgeous textures. They are certainly the kind of sounds that deserve attention, but give them too much and the momentum stalls and the piece becomes a set of splashy parts rather than a well defined whole.
Which is no small task, given this is a piece of music of almost wacky ambition, attempting to portray “the development of the human race from its origin, through the various phases of evolution, religious as well as scientific, up to Nietzsche’s idea of the Superman.” Whoa.
Philosophy and history lesson aside (“From the man who brought you Hitler and Leopold and Loeb…!”) this 
is a ravishing piece of music, and one that makes great demands on conductor and orchestra alike. Remembering the famous opening, we think of it as big and brassy. But it was the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s strings that really stepped up here. Gorgeously warm ensemble and sensitive phrasing brought out Strauss’s soft heart as well as his fire.
There was similarly beautiful playing from the leader of the MSO string pack, Frank Almond, performing the Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1. From the first mini-cadenza, Almond showed an easy comfort with the piece. There were few romantic histrionics, Almond nonetheless captured the breathy beauty of the piece, particularly the gorgeous melody of the second movement. The music, in fact, reflected Almond’s intimate approach. Dressed in a casual black shirt and pants, he waited for his solo parts like a golfer waiting his turn to tee off.
Delfs opened the concert with the lusciously somber orchestration by John Adams of Franz Liszt’s impressionistic The Black Gondola. Said to be inspired by Liszt’s premonition of the death of Richard Wagner, his son-in-law, it’s a piece ripe with opportunities for simple but innovative orchestral colors. Adams rose to the challenge, and the MSO players captured the pieces sonic riches.
Review- MSO’s Zarathustra
Andreas Delfs can be an excitable conductor, which sometimes results in careening tempos and momentum at the expense of clarity. He struck the right balance with his reading of Richard Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra Friday night at the Marcus Center. The music is much too dense to gallop through, but Delfs also resisted the temptation to stop and linger over Strauss’s gorgeous textures. They are certainly the kind of sounds that deserve attention, but give them too much and the momentum stalls and the piece becomes a set of splashy parts rather than a well defined whole. Which is…
