FORT WORTH — “The Sounds of Paris” was the title of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra’s first classical program of 2026. In the company of bona fide Frenchmen Berlioz, Debussy and Ravel, Frédéric Chopin might have seemed an odd man out, but the proudly Polish composer lived nearly half his too-short 39 years in the French capital.
Prefacing the Saturday night concert, at Bass Performance Hall, was another of the FWSO’s appealing big-screen video introductions, this one by principal keyboardist Buddy Bray. (He might have added that the music would be best enjoyed without applause between movements.) And then the American National Anthem, which in this context seemed particularly out of place.
With music director Robert Spano conducting, the concert proper opened with an oddly lifeless, aimless Ravel Pavane for a Dead Princess.
As Ravel pointed out, it’s not a funereal lament, but rather a dreamy little dance imagined for a young girl in a Velázquez painting. But Saturday’s Pavane lacked direction or buoyancy, and balances weren’t ideally gauged.
Matters improved significantly in the Chopin F minor Piano Concerto (called No. 2, although actually composed before the nominal No. 1). With the Sarajevo-born, New York-based Pedja Mužijević as soloist, the performance was sensibly paced — although the finale seemed a bit cautious for the Allegro vivace marking — and thoughtfully proportioned.
In music never meant to overwhelm — unlike that of Chopin’s contemporary Liszt — Mužijević maintained a stylish reserve, dispensing fluid cascades of notes but never banging or booming. In orchestral writing mainly subservient to the piano, Spano and the orchestra were thoroughly sympathetic collaborators.
Although I’ve experienced a performance or two of Berlioz’ sprawling “dramatic symphony” Romeo and Juliet, for soloists, chorus and orchestra, before Saturday I don’t think I’d heard the purely orchestral third-movement “Love Scene” played on its own. Berlioz himself was particularly fond of the movement, and from gentle lappings and glistenings to surges of passion, Spano elucidated the wizardry of orchestral colors and textures.
The evening’s pièce de résistance was a splendidly shipshape Debussy La mer. From evocation of sunrise to midday on the sea, with sonic glowings, glintings and glarings, to waves tossing and foaming, to elemental interactions of wind and water, Spano had a sure and sympathetic command of the score. One after another, every section of the orchestra did itself proud. It was an exhilarating performance.
Sound in Bass Hall continues to be compromised by the FWSO’s drawing sound-absorptive velour curtains over all but one level of Bass Hall’s side and rear walls. As part of the hall’s original acoustical design, they are intended for amplified-sound events, not orchestral concerts. For the latter, they dull harmonic overtones and reduce the audience’s sense of sonic envelopment. Make them go away, please.
Details
Repeats at 2 p.m. Sunday at Bass Performance Hall, Fourth and Commerce, Fort Worth. $32.50 to $113. 817-665-6000, fwsymphony.org.
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