Johannes Brahms’ “A German Requiem” is in seven movements that last approximately 68 minutes. For lazy conductors and musical organizations, that’s enough for a full concert.
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Not at the Grant Park Music Festival Friday night. Guest conductor Thierry Fischer presented the Requiem on a program that opened with the first performance by the Grant Park Orchestra of the string-orchestra version of Arnold Schoenberg’s “Transfigured Night.”
The old excuse that the Brahms offers so full an emotional experience that it demands to be heard alone was thus exploded by no less than one of Brahms’ most ardent admirers, whose own piece offered a strong but different kind of consolation.
It took some courage to present the pairing at a summer festival. Being an early work, the Schoenberg does not prompt the unthinking audience recoil that occurs with his mature music. But because the shifting moods of the half-hour tone poem are conveyed entirely by strings, it is difficult fare for the outdoors, where tender tone and expressive nuance evaporate.
Despite amplification, Fischer’s performance had some of the most expressive string sound of the season, both delicate and passionate. The music director of the Utah Symphony took his time with the score, allowing its spiritual atmosphere to unfold naturally, without gloss or impatient nudging. It was an understanding performance that went beyond intellectualism and solid preparation.
Friday’s account of the Brahms leaned toward the long-standing smooth solemnity that has been called “Wagnerian sostenuto” and away from the ruggedness more recently uncovered by proponents of historically informed performance.
There’s more life in Brahms than the image of a long-bearded grandfather. Six of the Requiem’s movements, in fact, have explosions of joy or agitation. These did not register to optimal effect in Fischer’s reverent interpretation, which had the organ Brahms specified as “ad lib”; wondrous singing throughout from the Grant Park Chorus; and, in three movements, fresh, straightforward contributions from soprano Caitlin Lynch and bass-baritone Stephen Hegedus.
Gravity minimized flashes of fierceness and terror, which often are muted by turning consolation into what a chorus member introducing the program called “comfort food.” Especially missed was the bit of hammering emphasis that Brahms calls for in the early high point of “For all flesh is of grass.”
The program will be repeated 7:30 p.m. Saturday.
Alan Artner is a freelance critic.