DSO On the Go! ‘Respighi’s Fountains of Rome’ @ Dallas Symphony (in Frisco and Dallas)

Pianist Bruce Liu; photo courtesy of the DSO

—Wayne Lee Gay

Music director Fabio Luisi and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra serve up three desserts without a main course this weekend, in a concert program light on musical substance and heavy on sugar and syrup. A dose of twenty-first-century wallpaper music, a glittery piano concerto, and a long stretch of pleasant picture-painting collectively leave an empty feeling at the concert's close.

The program opens with the ten-minute-long tone poem, "What Do Flowers do at Night?" by the orchestra's German-born composer-in-residence Sophia Jani. The Selenicereus grandiflorus cactus (aka "Queen of the Night"), which blooms once a year for one night, inspired the work: resonant stacked chords lead into a generally intriguing mix of static minimalism with occasional sweeping neo-romanticism, after which a mildly dark climax culminates in a quiet close. Add this to the large repertoire of harmless symphonic curtain-raisers. 

Canadian pianist Bruce Liu, 28, joins the orchestra and conductor Luisi for French romantic composer Camille Saint-Saëns' sparkling Piano Concerto No. 5 ("Egyptian"). This work provides plenty of opportunity to show off pianistic muscle, elegant technique, and even a bit of humor, and Liu shows considerable promise with sophisticated phrasing in the relatively quiet opening passages. However, he and Luisi never quite locate the momentum that can drive this work forward. Instead, in Liu's performance, the concerto becomes merely a series of disconnected episodes. 

At this point, the program cries for something substantial to raise it above the level of a symphonic pops concert; instead, Luisi offers two of the entertaining cycles of twentieth-century Italian composer Ottorino Respighi. Church Windows and Fountains of Rome are amazingly skillful as exercises in colorful orchestration, pretty tunes, and precise scenic evocation—in the manner of the background music for Cecil B. DeMille's early-film epics. To his credit, conductor Luisi certainly knows his way through this music of his Italian compatriot.

The weekend’s performances are part of the symphony’s “DSO On the Go!” series—the first two performances in Frisco (including one TONIGHT), the second two at the Meyerson.  

WHEN: October 9-12, 2025
WHERE: FRIDAY at 7:30, Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco; Saturday at 7:30 and Sunday at 2:00, Meyerson Symphony Center, Dallas
WEB: dallassymphony.org