By Scott Cantrell | The Dallas Morning News
There’s a special pleasure in hearing a refreshing take on a composition you know pretty well. Not, of course, a performance that’s distorted or belabored with point making. On Tuesday night, at Moody Performance Hall, music director Richard McKay led the Dallas Chamber Symphony in a fresh take on the Brahms Third Symphony.
[McKay] was generally careful to keep winds, brass and strings in balance, while allowing inner voices more prominence. I heard counterpoints I’d never noticed before.
McKay had a real feeling for the tempo giusto, the pace at which the music would live, move and have its being. Urgency was balanced by expressive detail. Lingering lovingly over crucial intersections, he then could give the music just the right nudge ahead.
The Haydn was as refreshing as a splash in cool water, and here the strings played with great finesse and subtlety. Both McKay and Nel kept the music light on its feet, but also elegantly detailed, with lots of deft interaction — and just the right feistiness in the finale.