‘Beethoven & Strauss w/ Daniel Hawkins @ The Dallas Symphony
—Wayne Lee Gay
Homegrown talent comes to the fore this weekend as Daniel Hawkins, a native of Chandler, Texas, steps into the spotlight as soloist in an impressive performance of Richard Strauss' Horn Concerto No. 2 with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and conductor Fabio Luisi.
Hawkins' journey to this moment included undergraduate training at SMU and graduate studies at Rice University, with several major competition prizes along the way, leading to his current job as principal horn of the DSO. Like most American orchestras, the Dallas Symphony occasionally forgoes an international guest artist and puts a member of the orchestra in the soloist role. In this instance, Hawkins proves equal to the honor and responsibility, with a flawless interpretation of an emotionally and physically demanding concerto.
Composed in Vienna in 1943 under the shadow of the occupying Nazi regime and the increasing stress of life in a war zone, Strauss' Horn Concerto No. 2 is surprisingly serene, with Mozartean classicism melded to Strusss' complex late romanticism; the effect is occasionally jarring, sometimes puzzling, and always engaging.
For his part, Hawkins meets the momentous technical challenges with evident ease joined to an extraordinarily warm and radiant tone quality. Together with conductor Luisi and the orchestra, he carries the work to its dazzlingly joyful closing bars.
The concert opens with one of conductor Luisi's "Surprise Opening" works, a practice in which he and the orchestra perform a lesser-known work without letting the audience know what the work is until after intermission. This time, there was no mystery for this listener personally; conductor Luisi is probably unaware of the fairly widespread use of this work as background music for television and movies. Still, it was great to hear a live orchestral performance of the soaring tunes and rich orchestration of the work in question. Since two more performances remain as of this writing, I'll leave its identity unrevealed.
After intermission, Luisi and the orchestra present Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in a brisk, fully resonant version. Darkness and light abound here; Luisi chooses brisk tempos that heighten the music's power; this orchestra handles those tempos readily.
After several seasons on the podium of the DSO, Luisi knows exactly how to exploit the uniquely wonderful acoustic environment of Meyerson Symphony Center. For Beethoven's Seventh, he creates an impressively rich sound from the beginning, but carefully husbands the orchestra's broadest volume for the final moments. He thus creates a wonderful journey through a work that — two hundred years ago — defined what orchestral music can and should be.
WHEN: October 16-18, 2026
WHERE: Meyerson Symphony Center (Flora St.), Dallas Arts District
WEB: dallassymphony.org
