FORT WORTH — With Fort Worth Symphony music director Miguel Harth-Bedoya due to step down at the end of next season, guest conductors are getting…
FORT WORTH — With Fort Worth Symphony music director Miguel Harth-Bedoya due to step down at the end of next season, guest conductors are getting extra scrutiny. Having previously led both the FWSO and the Dallas Symphony, American conductor Andrew Grams was back with the FWSO Friday night, at Bass Performance Hall. There were bones to be picked, but much about the performances was quite special.
The three pieces on the program, penned between 1851 and 1877, were all by German composers with personal connections.
The opener, Robert Schumann’s quirky Hermann und Dorothea Overture, mixing jolly, lightly military and tender music — and snatches of “La Marseillaise” — probably deserves its obscurity. But Grams led a lovingly shaped and detailed performance, and I was struck by how beautifully the orchestra was playing.
The Bruch G minor Violin Concerto had the phenomenal technical services of the young violinist Simone Porter. No challenge of velocity or intonation could faze her, and her Guadagnini instrument could produce big, bold tones as well as subtle intimations.
