By Lawrence Toppman
Kwamé Ryan loves Johannes Brahms, as he told fans at the pre-concert talk Friday before his formal debut as music director of the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra (CSO).
He was making inroads on Brahms’ piano intermezzi when he left his native Trinidad for music school in England. Upon enrolling at 14, the first big piece he sang with an orchestra was Brahms’ “A German Requiem.” After the CSO offered him this job, he conducted Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 here last April. So it was no surprise that he programmed the Requiem when he officially took the reins at Belk Theater.
Yet it was the first 20 percent of that concert, a short and mournful piece titled “Musica Dolorosa” (“Music of Pain”), that had me most excited.
First, it was by a living composer from a land whose music Charlotteans seldom hear: Pēteris Vasks, a Latvian who’ll turn 80 next April. Second, it dovetailed beautifully with the Requiem – or should that be the other way around? – because both were partly inspired by the deaths of family members, Vasks’ sister and Brahms’ mother.
Yet the agony expressed by Vasks, who was also chafing under Soviet oppression in the 1980s, dissipated as we listened to Brahms’ comforting piece, which has no day of judgment or plea for heavenly redemption. From the podium, where he wore a charcoal ensemble topped by a Nehru-type jacket and no tie, Ryan described the evening as a journey from suffering to solace. That’s how he conducted it, uniting the two pieces without pause and asking us to hold applause until the end.
Even after only four concerts, his strengths as a conductor are well known: attention to detail, a willingness to build slowly to climaxes before unleashing full power, a desire to get us to listen closely by changing tempos enough to make them unfamiliar but not eccentric. For example, he traded mystery at the start of the Brahms for warmth and a gently energetic pulse.
The strengths of the Charlotte Master Chorale, prepared as always by Kenney Potter, are even better known to longtime listeners: clear diction, an ability to sing really softly or robustly, no raggedness in unison. They’re like a Maserati engine that purrs at slow speeds but revs up excitingly when turned loose.
Soprano Janai Brugger and baritone Alexander Birch Elliott brought their own virtues to the relatively brief vocal solos in the Requiem: His breath control and steady legato line heightened the drama, while she scaled her big voice down for a firm maternal tenderness.
I have been impressed with the musicians’ responsiveness in each of Ryan’s four outings with them. They had a rich tone Friday even when, as in the first movement of the Brahms – where the violins never play a note! – they have to operate with reduced forces.
Vasks’ piece tested them, moving from drawn-out cries of despair to aleatory music (depending somewhat on random choices) that reached us as angry chaos, then to a soothing solo by principal cellist Jonathan Lewis, which settled into a resigned sigh. Yet the orchestra rolled just as readily through Brahms’ many uplifting fugues, meeting all of Ryan’s demands.
Rumor has it, beyond the to-be-expected published remarks from symphony management, that he has had a special rapport with the musicians since his first audition concert in January 2023. That’s easy to believe after hearing Friday’s results.
Pictured: Kwame Ryan conducting; courtesy of Charlotte Symphony.