The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s 2025-2026 season opener was energetic and emotional, in response to critic Jordan Owen. (Picture courtesy of the ASO)
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra kicked off its 2025-26 season, its fourth with conductor Nathalie Stutzmann, on Friday, October 3, with a night of Aaron Copland, Edward Elgar and Richard Strauss. It was, on the entire, an electrifying night and one which ranks excessive among the many ASO’s seasonal openers.
Stutzmann took the stage to a standing ovation, one which speaks to the tremendously heat welcome she’s acquired from the Atlanta classical viewers at giant. She commenced with the customary seasonal kickoff efficiency of the Star Spangled Banner, and, whereas the orchestra simply captured the majestic grandeur of the piece, the viewers didn’t. (I hate to tread on the solemn dignity of the second, however not even the patriotic grandeur of our nationwide anthem could make viewers participation in classical music a pleasing expertise.)
It appeared a bit redundant to comply with The Star Spangled Banner with Copland’s equally anthemic Fanfare for the Widespread Man, however the sheer power from the horns greater than made up for the sense of repetition. There was one thing aggressive and primal of their taking part in tonight — particularly within the trombones — that actually spoke to the blood. The place the nationwide anthem had been a galvanizing of nationwide identification, this was a testomony to the person human spirit, and one which I might solely hope would radiate throughout the night’s proceedings.
Radiate it did with visitor cellist Alisa Weilerstein becoming a member of the orchestra for Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op. 85. Elgar was a product of Edwardian England, the epoch lionized by Anglophiles in exhibits like Downton Abbey, and whereas he thrived within the period, he was thought of previous information amidst the altering musical panorama of late 1910s. In that gentle, the Concerto displays his anguish and alienation from a world that had left him behind.
Weilerstein was able to lean into that anguish in a way that was so exact as to be disconcerting in its intimacy. In music criticism, there are occasions when the sheer virtuosity of a participant’s technical capability is spectacular sufficient to warrant commendation. Then there are occasions, as with Weilerstein’s efficiency, the place the technical facility disappears into the background as a result of it was solely a car to take us into the religious core of the participant and the music they search to embody.
There are historic movies which function actual life individuals portrayed so precisely and effortlessly by the actors that the artifice of performing drops away and we’re merely within the presence of the unique individual. That stage of theatrical mastery is what was on show in Weilerstein’s efficiency: It ceased to be the sound of a cello; it ceased to be the sound of music; it was, merely and hauntingly, a pure and undiluted capturing of the human spirit in auditory kind. We had been there within the throes of the righteous ache that crammed Elgar as he wrote the Concerto, and the cello was not an instrument — solely a conduit.
The orchestra at giant fed off that extraordinary efficiency and soared out and in of Weilerstein’s phrases with lush, simmering tones that felt infused together with her aura. It was musical interaction in its most interesting kind. One watches a whole bunch of concert events hoping for only one that can emerge with the transcendental artistry that was on show right here.
Sadly, Weilerstein additionally launched the night’s solely main hiccup by performing a further unannounced solo piece. This follow has at all times struck me as needlessly self-indulgent and solely serves to forestall the intermission with its guarantees of a go to to the ingesting fountain and stretch of the legs. However right here it had the added impact of blunting the afterglow of the extraordinary expertise that preceded it, like studying the church bulletins after a visitation by the Virgin Mary.
Richard Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40 (“A Hero’s Life”) made up the night’s second half. As soon as once more, the ASO got here alive. That fireplace that first sparked among the many horns throughout Fanfare and crescendoed with Weilerstein was a raging torrent all through this epic finale. All through the orchestra felt positively euphoric: The place I’d criticized them previously for feeling overly restrained, this was sensory overload in the absolute best sense of the time period.
High honors in the course of the second half go to ASO concertmaster David Coucheron, whose violin solo was a tour de power that oscillated between intense ardour and minute, tender immediacy with the commanding aplomb that make him such an gratifying onstage presence. He is aware of methods to dip right down to barely a whisper earlier than crusing again into the stratosphere on the wings of his accompanying ensemble.
Final 12 months, I critiqued the ASO’s opening evening for its soporific lack of power. If Friday night’s efficiency was any indication, they’ve taken my criticism to coronary heart.
The place & When
Opening weekend for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra continues with a second efficiency this night, October 4, at 8 p.m. and a 3rd on Sunday, October 5, at 3 p.m. Tickets rely on seating and begin round $45.
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Jordan Owen started writing about music professionally on the age of 16 in Oxford, Mississippi. A 2006 graduate of the Berklee Faculty of Music, he’s an expert guitarist, bandleader and composer.
