The third annual Festival del Sole came to an impressive conclusion Sunday afternoon at the Lincoln Theater in Yountville, with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under its dynamic new music director, Jaap van Zweden, performing an all-Mahler program capped by a forceful, streamlined performance of the composer's Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp minor.
Van Zweden, who was appointed in Dallas earlier this year and officially starts his tenure there with the 2008-2009 season, was the big news at this year's festival, which presented 10 days of orchestral concerts, chamber music, and benefit performances, as well as numerous art, food, and wine events at venues throughout the Napa Valley. This program — and an earlier one he led on Friday, featuring works by Beethoven, Prokofiev, and Ravel — offered Bay Area audiences an intriguing and largely rewarding first look at his podium skills.
Sunday in Yountville, the Amsterdam-born conductor (who also serves as chief conductor and artistic director of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra) opened the program with a performance of Mahler's Ruckert Lieder, with mezzo-soprano Jill Grove as soloist.
Yet it was the lean, supple performance of the Mahler Fifth that demonstrated the potential for exciting music-making in the years to come for Van Zweden and his new ensemble.
The conductor apparently rejects the notion of Mahler's score as a platform for all manner of heightened emotionalism (or, as the anti-Bernstein camp likes to call it, wallowing). There was certainly little excess in Van Zweden's reading of the five-movement score, which came in at a fleet, but no less potent, 70 minutes.
Georgia Rowe has been a Bay Area arts writer since 1986. She is Opera News’ chief San Francisco correspondent, and a frequent contributor to San Francisco Classical Voice, Musical America, San Jose Mercury News, Contra Costa Times, and San Francisco Examiner. Her work has also appeared in Gramophone, San Francisco Magazine, and Songlines.