Tchaikovsky’s drama, Copland’s blast

We heard two sides of the theatrical Tchaikovsky at Friday night’s MSO concert, in his “overture fantasy” after Romeo and Juliet and in the familiar Suite from The Nutcracker ballet.

Both sit on the cusp of Pops concert fare, but music director Edo de Waart and the orchestra took them seriously. But then, they take everything seriously.

De Waart took his time with the lugubrious opening, in the low winds, of Romeo and Juliet. It read as a sombre, intensely personal meditation. But it rises to a lament, delivered in speech rhythms and peaking with high, poignant leaps of minor sixths. Through all this gloom, de Waart helped Tchaikovsky wind the spring. The blast of energy that follows both represents the conflict of the Capulets and Montagues and releases the purely music tension that rose imperceptibly from the initial gloom.

From there, the 20-minute work fitfully swings from violence to versions of one of the hottest love themes in all of music. That theme bloomed with an overwhelming fragrance on its climactic restatement, and it more than held its own against the whirlwind development of the violent themes. The latter, by the way, abound with fast and furious unison string work that the MSO’s sections nailed with both passion and precision. When a slower version of that idea churned in the low strings beneath the love theme, the music told the story: A deadly undertow of entrenched hatred drags downs love and lovers.

On the other hand, the Nutcracker suite is all buoyancy, even more than the full ballet. Tchaikovsky left out the noble pas de deux and the mock-scary stuff. He stuck with the overture, the party march and seven Act 2 character dances. De Waart favored brisk tempos, a springy, balletic way of bounding off the beat, and a balance that promoted airy transparency of texture. In such a mix, it was easy to enjoy the endless details in playing and phrasing, all the little bon-bons of accent, staccato, legato and tidy ensemble. Hard not to smile at such a charming performance. In a nice non-gesture, De Waart rested his baton and let harpist Danis Kelly luxuriate in the big solo in Waltz of the Flowers. In a nice gesture, he gave her first bow.

How big, brash and American is Aaron Copland’s Symphony No. 3? Well, somebody gets to whack an anvil about six times at the end of it.

It’s loaded with clang and bang, but that’s not all Copland put into this 1946 work. It opens with a set of long themes, a good bit of them couched in very high violins. The lines reach and yearn, forever striving and forever evolving. De Waart and his players absorbed them fully and got to their expansiveness, the sense of limbs and muscles stretching to the sky and the horizon. Great section playing in the violins kept the sound substantial at the top of the range. Copland likes to wind his themes around themselves in close canonic imitation. I admire the way de Waart balanced these voices so you can really hear them twining in a way that is at once familiar (we all know Row Your Boat) but also laced with unusual clashes.

The MSO reveled in this virtuoso orchestra music. Meter changes and nasty off-beat entrances are everywhere in this score. The second movement, especially, puts the winds in a crazy web of hocketing comprising gnarly little rhythmic figures. The musicians jumped in with utter assurance throughout, to dazzling effect. (The music brought this painting to mind.)

The finale, which incorporates most of Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man and is very much about the brasses, blew the doors off Uihlein Hall. That was the main point, but not the only point. The MSO gave us hushed suspense in the murmuring after that fanfare opening; the delicate tracery of the fanfare and themes from the first movement put us in a dreamy wonderland before the big finish.

De Waart and the orchestra will repeat this program at 8 p.m. Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday (Feb 11-12) at Marcus Center Uihlein Hall. For tickets call the Marcus box office, 414 273-7206. For more information, visit the Milwaukee Symphony’s website.