Sarasota Orchestra refracts an American milestone in a multihued Masterworks

With its Feb. 13 performance of its most recent Masterworks concert, "Variations on America," the Sarasota Orchestra celebrated a 250-year milestone by immersing us in the American experience.

Adolphus Hailstork, the first of two African-American voices on the program, captured the bustling energy of Norfolk, Virginia, one of America’s busiest seaports, in “An American Port of Call."

The orchestra captured his remarkable color and the many challenges of precision with bracing energy. Listening carefully you could catch musical tips of the hat with jazzy clarinet wails and the lowest voiced brass and strings nodding to draft of massive ships. 

Even a mellowing out with bassoon and strings created a brief deep-water interlude before the music returned to the frenetic port energy in this well-crafted work.

The orchestra’s collaboration with soloist Clayton Stephenson in George Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F produced a most expressively broad-ranged performance. 

One could expect Gershwin’s jazzy style, rhapsodic melodics and brash American energy, but Stephenson used an unusual amount of restraint and a subtle touch after the upbeat urban splash of the orchestra’s opening. One can hear rhapsodic surges with shades of Rachmaninoff in the orchestra color and emotional depth, but this is all Gershwin.

Stephenson alternatively coaxed passionate phrasing along with ferocious percussive attacks, often for an exhilarating result. After a thunderous ovation, Stephenson further proved his mettle in a brief treatment of “Tea for Two” in the style of the jazz virtuoso Art Tatum. Bravo!

The most resonant moments of the evening were not only musical. Framing this program of distinctly American works, Sarasota Orchestra Music Director Giancarlo Guerrero addressed the audience with uncommon clarity about art’s capacity to stretch boundaries and mirror a nation’s evolving identity. 

His remarks were illuminating and quietly purposeful — a reminder that programming itself can be an act of thoughtful leadership.

Charles Ives, a radical beyond his years, composed his Variations on America in 1891 when he was merely 17 years old. It was radical when William Schuman’s transcription for orchestra premiered in 1964. Guerrero and the orchestra proved it rings true now as a mirror of American culture. 

The familiar “Our country tis of thee” is refracted through several lenses with some delightful and some discordant views. Sound familiar?

The most profound performance of the evening, in what was for many a first, was William L. Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony. Premiered in 1934 to standing ovations, this work was sadly neglected. Yet I must agree with Guerrero who in his remarks named it one of the greatest symphonies of the 20th century.

While not programmatic, the composer stated in advance his intention to capture the African-American experience. He certainly did so, not in a superficial rendering of spirituals and such. Instead, he evokes emotional response to such moments as involuntary parting from Africa, a lifetime of enslavement and the taste of life unrestrained.

I don’t have the heart to deconstruct this performance. With the emotional depth of this music and the excellent use of all the traditional compositional tools, I can only call it the most effective, most impactful musical statement I have experienced in many years.

Performance and technical excellence only deepen the impact. Guerrero and the Sarasota Orchestra musicians saw to that, while surely infusing the symphony with their own emotional input. On today’s world stage, this is the honesty and moral authority we need.