MSO and Chorus, Nikolaj Znaider

The turbulence in Elgar’s Violin Concerto is not of one great wave, but of turbulence within turbulence, of eddies and rivulets and crosscurrents that crest and break within and sometimes against the general flow.

Violinist Nikolaj Znaider, conductor Edo de Waart and the Milwaukee Symphony charged Elgar’s tangled energy in an electric performance Friday night. Their free reading feinted and lunged and raced and lingered with unerring instincts for the dramatic moment and for the dramatic arc. They drove each of the three movements to its climax. Those climaxes offered not relief but release. After them the music moved more freely and easily.

All that very Romantic expressive freedom came at no loss of rhythmic clarity or ensemble precision. The performance was taut and elastic, not sloppy or frayed, and its supple coherence made it engaging for its whole 50 minutes.

Znaider is a wonder. His tone is so varied, but always full and rich. His pianissimo passages  are very quiet indeed, but miraculously full and present. In speedy virtuoso passages, he articulates every note with hard-edged specificity. Most important, he understands the drama in the music. Late in the last movement, its themes give way to an extended reworking, mostly in violin solo, to the theme heard at the very start. In Znaider’s hands, it was a heartbroken recollection of days gone by.

The brasses opened this unusual program with antiphonal music by Giovanni Gabrieli. A dozen or so players split ranks and took positions on either side of the Uihlein Hall stage. The spatial play of sound was striking. Beautifully tuned and rhythmically sharp playing put the music in bracing focus.

Gabriel Faure’s Requiem is no rage against the dying of the light or essay in fire and brimstone. This modest Mass sees death as a gentle and benign slipping away, a silent unmooring to a dreamy drift on a calm sea. Its seven prayers start quietly and rise to glowing joy ever so gradually, and then they gradually fade away.

This is music of hypnotic, contemplative beauty, and the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus and Orchestra,  soprano Kiri Deonarine, baritone Kim Josephson and, most of all, Edo de Waart cast and sustained its spell.

This program will be repeated at 8 p.m. Saturday. For tickets and further information, call the MSO ticket line, 414-291-7605, the Marcus Center box office, 414-273-7206, or visit the orchestra’s website.