A powerful “Rite,” luxuriant Schubert

Close to the stage and at the far right, I got a good look at Edo de Waart conducting the Milwaukee Symphony in Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring at the Friday matinee. No wonder they play so well for him.

De Waart negotiated the endlessly changing meter and unit of beat with utter assurance. He spelled them out with a baton technique both completely clear and vividly expressive. He inspired viscous readings of those sudden, lush unreelings of thickly harmonized string melody and explosive renderings of the accents and enormous momentum in the driving, pounding dance  rhythms. His cues anticipated sounds just enough to reassure and assist his players. This piece is a minefield, but the players strode into every entrance on a firm, confident tread.

At the outset, as the sun rises in Stravinskian strands of intertwining woodwind lines, de Waart dropped the patterned beat and drew the lines from his virtuoso section as if conjuring the music from the air. (Which, in a literal way, he was.) When Theodore Soluri played his big solos, de Waart dropped his hands and gave his principal bassoonist a big-time soloist’s leeway. The trust was not misplaced.

Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 (“The Great”) in C does not challenge musicians with the daunting rhythms and jolting contrasts of Rite of Spring. Its difficulty lies in its density. Without a very careful balancing of voices and superb intonation, the music turns murky. And it’s all too easy, as a player, to drift off and drone on with some of those droning voices in the middle of the harmony.

De Waart and company met those challenges, with the result of music that glowed from within, its warmth borne on the energy expended down to every last chair in every section. Instead of mud, the MSO served richness and complexity.

In that richness and complexity, Schubert’s Eighth resembles the music of Brahms, especially in the Scherzo. How rollicking and brawny and jolly that main Scherzo theme seems to be, and how odd its dark turn into the minor. De Waart framed and the orchestra weighted these moments with a specific gravity that set them apart, even as the momentum of the large melody pressed on. Likewise the unlikely little pastorales tucked into the adamant march that is the principal theme of the first movement.

Such remarkable moments abound in this symphony, and de Waart and the MSO did not allow them to pass unremarked. This communicative awareness is the difference between an engaging performance and a routine one. This conductor and these musicians simply will not settle for the routine.