Boston Classical Review

Character matters—or so we’re often told. It certainly counts in music, and in various ways, as the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons demonstrated in their traversal of works by Mozart and Kevin Puts on Thursday night.

The Brightness of Light, Puts’ 2019 effort for soprano, baritone, and orchestra, takes a hard look at contrasting artistic types, particularly those of the American painter Georgia O’Keefe and her German-born husband, the photographer and curator Alfred Stieglitz. Part song cycle, part documentary, part theatrical scene, Brightness, which was receiving its Symphony Hall premiere, expands on Puts’ earlier Letters from Georgia.

Genre-wise, it’s challenging music to pigeonhole. Co-commissioned by the BSO, the libretto utilizes some of the couple’s thousands of letters to one another.

The larger work also involves a projection design by Wendall K. Harrington that employs visual art by each of its protagonists, as well as videos of O’Keefe and copies of some of the letters Puts set. Together, these elements trace the blossoming of a romance that ended with the pair physically estranged but still emotionally intertwined.

Despite its many moving and fitfully distracting parts, Brightness’s dramatic arc is clear and the music’s responsiveness to its subject matter is sometimes stirring.

Thursday’s performance featured soprano Renée Fleming and baritone Rod Gilfry, for whom the work was originally crafted. Both singers are well established, and the night’s rendition didn’t contain many surprises. Gilfry sang with ringing tone and periodically raw passion. Fleming’s instrument remains a marvel of warmth and unaffected expression.

Individually, the singers defined their characters’ respective spaces well: his, often obsessed with her; hers, frequently longing for Stieglitz—but also engrossed in the wonders and mysteries of nature. Together, the pair proved simpatico partners in Brightness’s two biggest numbers, “Ache” and “The Thing You Call Holy.”

For their part, Nelsons and the BSO were in vigorous form, occasionally a bit out-of-balance—the “Introduction’s” apex was brass-heavy—but, overall, rhythmically secure and attuned to many of the nuances of Puts’ writing. The ecstatic account of the second orchestral interlude, “The High Priestess of the Desert,” was particularly thrilling.

Though Puts’ largely diatonic score doesn’t quite exceed the sum of its parts, Brightness involves no shortage of memorable moments. The long, pulsing ostinato figures in “First Correspondence” craft an atmosphere pregnant with anticipation. Meanwhile, concertmaster Nathan Cole’s scordatura fiddle in “Violin” provided a predictably humorous bit of text painting.

Also captivating are the languorous string lines illustrating the heat of “Taos” and the delicate blend of clarinets with voice—the former seem to have surreptitiously wandered in from Leonard Bernstein’s Age of Anxiety Symphony—in “Friends.” The tuned gongs in “Sunset” are an inspired stroke.

For all its colors, though, Brightness relates a fundamentally tragic tale. Passion only carries things so far. An understanding that comes from true love can, indeed, cover a multitude of errors and bring some measure of acceptance. But even that doesn’t fully alleviate the pangs of regret and loss.

Given its theme, Puts’ score made for a striking contrast with Mozart’s exuberant Symphony No. 36. Written in the course of just four days in 1783, the “Linz” is among the composer’s most perfect achievements.

Yet Nelsons’ interpretation—while generally well-directed, -balanced, and often dancing—rarely rose above the commonplace. What it most lacked was a consistent attention to dynamic contrasts and phrasings.

True, those emerged, intermittently, in the middle movements. The unison bassoon and low string lines in the Andante’s development were the picture of cheekiness. The lilting pianissimos the orchestra nailed in the Menuetto’s Trio were gracefully riveting.

Unfortunately, the strengths of those spots only underlined questions about what was going on in the rest of the symphony.

Where, for instance, were the first movement’s big dynamic contrasts? Why weren’t its pianos as focused or soft as those heard in subsequent movements? Why weren’t the forte brass and timpani interjections in the second offset more boldly? How about the furtive scalar gestures that dot each section?

Had more care for dynamics, articulations, and storytelling been lavished on the larger work, Thursday might have delivered some truly revelatory Mozart. Instead, this ”Linz” symphony was technically solid but, interpretively, content to settle for half-measures.

The Overture to The Abduction from the Seraglio, on the other hand, punched above its weight. Lively and crisp, the night’s curtain-raiser made one hope that in some not-too-distant future Nelsons and the BSO will turn their opera-in-concert attentions to Mozart, a composer whose musical understanding of the foibles and frailties of human nature and character remains second to none.

The program will be repeated 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Symphony Hall. bso.org

 

Posted in Performances

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One Response to “Fleming and Gilfry provide memorable moments in Puts’ “Brightness of Light””

1. Posted Nov 23, 2024 at 4:45 am by Harold Braun

   Why isn´t the saturday concert being broadcast on WCRB?

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