Delfs returns to a warm welcome

I do not know whether such things as souls exist, much less what form they might take or where they might reside. But music such as Morten Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna, which the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and Chorus performed Friday, makes me think that I might have one. A soul, I mean.

Andreas Delfs, the MSO’s conductor laureate, is a little obsessed with Lauridsen’s (b. 1943, prof. of music at USC) music, with good reason. Delfs talked about it some when we met for an interview Wednesday. He noted that Lauridsen’s  harmonies tend to climb right up the overtone ladder. Even on the spinet piano in the conductor’s room, such extended chords create a heavenly shimmer. At the post-concert talk-back Friday, Delfs said that “this music goes directly to your heart and soul, without taking too much of a detour through your head.”

He’s quite right. Lux Aeterna is not about drama or development or structure or much of anything other than entering a glowing sonority and finding some mystic serenity there. Though the harmonies are highly dissonant on paper, Lauridsen voices and colors them to make them benign and ecstatic in a quiet sort of way. Choral director Lee Erickson had his choir tuned in to the fraction of the half-step and disciplined absolutely on the rhythmic side.

Lauridsen, known mainly as a choral composer, rarely combines the chorus and chamber-scaled orchestra; they mostly alternate through the 25-minute piece. Much of the orchestral music simmers and murmurs in low ranges. The choral music, with Latin sacred texts that refer to lux (light), skews high and mostly trembles and rings, even during the velvety, sotto voce amen at the very end. Only the gossamer, lilting dance of the fourth movement is propulsive. The rest of Lux Aeterna floats in a sort of divine stasis. Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.

Delfs understands this music exactly and commanded it completely. It is contemplative and not really the stuff of standing ovations, but the big crowd did stand and acknowledge its profound beauty.

Big, dramatic, late Romantic music framed Lux Aeterna; Sibelius’ Finlandia and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5.

Delfs brought out the monumental qualities of the weighty hymn that declares the seriousness of Sibelius’ nationalist intent at the outset. Routine performances of this piece tend to blur the character of the free-form episodes that follow, most of them related to the opening hymn. Delfs and the MSO gave each a distinct cast and color, from cavalry charge to pastorale.

The brilliant and theatrical Tchaikovsky Fifth showed Delfs at his very best. He conducted from memory and peppered his expressively athletic conducting with on-the-money cues. This orchestra does brilliance well and responded eagerly and fully to Delfs’ urging and calming.

Just to refresh your memory, this is the one that opens with a groaning introduction that recurs to intrude into the otherwise conventional forms that follow. In a way, Tchaikovsky’s Fifth is a novel about a brooding outsider who finally becomes a shining hero. The story came across as uncommonly clear, convincing and thrilling as Delfs and the orchestra turned its pages Friday. Delfs scaled up everything ever so gradually and aimed the whole symphony at the final apotheosis. This music really is the stuff of standing ovations, and it got a big one Friday.

This was Delfs’ first program back in Milwaukee since his tenure as music director ended after the 2008-2009 season. He, the orchestra and chorus will return to Marcus Center Uihlein Hall to play it again at 8 p.m. Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday, May 13-15. Visit the MSO website for further information; call the Marcus Center box office, 414 273-7206, for tickets.