Symphony Takes Trek Through Solar System

Spokane Symphony Friday, Oct. 10, Opera House

The time of safe space travel arrived Friday as the Spokane Symphony took its audience through the rocketing thrills of Gustav Holst’s suite “The Planets” after the cooler delights of Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony.

Opening the program with the “Jupiter” Symphony, conductor Fabio Mechetti used a larger complement of strings than Mozart would have been accustomed to in deference to the great size of the Opera House. But he held the orchestral power in check.

The result seemed less dramatic than it might have been in another place, like The Met, or with a less sensational companion piece than Holst’s blockbuster. The overall elegance was occasionally jarred by moments of irregular ensemble in the opening Allegro and later in the finale.

Still, Friday’s “Jupiter” amazed me, just as any good live performance of this great symphony does. Everything Mozart learned about using the minimum number of instruments, especially the winds, for maximum effect, plus everything he learned about combining tunes in “The Marriage of Figaro” and “Don Giovanni” is put to highly expressive use in “Jupiter.”

Mozart, and Mechetti, showed exactly what the British critic Alan Walker meant when he defined a “musical masterpiece” as a work that combines the greatest diversity of ideas with the maximum degree of coherence.

Audience reaction, tepid for Mozart, was enthusiastic for Holst’s “Planets,” and no wonder. Even after 75 years of performances by the world’s orchestras, even after its great tunes and unusual orchestral effects have been repeatedly cannibalized by others in films scores, popular songs and television commercials, “The Planets” remains as spectacular an orchestral work as ever written.

From the ominous rhythmic opening of “Mars - Bringer of War” to the fading into silence at the end of “Neptune - The Mystic,” Mechetti and the orchestra kept Holst’s trek through the solar system right on course.

There were some stellar solos by concertmaster Kelly Farris and cellist John Marshall in “Venus,” and by bassoonist Lynne Feller-Marshall and clarinettist Virginia Jones in “Uranus.”

But many of Holst’s greatest effects are in ensemble playing: the brass in the hearty folksiness of the big tune in “Jupiter,” the strings in the skittering fleetness of “Mercury.” The orchestra was joined by a wordless, six-part women’s chorus from the Symphony Chorale singing off-stage in the final pages of “Neptune,” giving an other-worldly chill to its ending.

Even the composer despaired of hearing this difficult, dissonant music being sung in tune, but the effect Friday was, nonetheless, extraordinary. The concert provided a stirring exploration of the outer space of Holst’s colorful planetary pictures and Mozart’s Olympian musical technique and expression.

, DataTimes