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Utah Symphony audiences are surprisingly receptive to unfamiliar music, said Thierry Fischer, the orchestra's music director.
That's in opposition to conventional wisdom on the subject, but Fischer claims that audience surveys back up his experience that Utah concertgoers are "incredibly enthusiastic about new music and responsive to new ideas." Maintaining that enthusiasm will depend on pairing exciting new works with favorites that audiences recognize, he said.
When Fischer conducts the Utah Symphony this weekend, that sort of programming will be in evidence. The program features the first symphony of a classical master; an oft-played 20th-century violin concerto; and an unfamiliar recent work that Fischer expects audience members will love immediately.
Fischer chose the Georgia-born violinist Robert McDuffie to solo in Samuel Barber's Violin Concerto — a perennial audience favorite — because he has been wanting to meet and perform with him. McDuffie plays a famous 1735 Guarneri del Gesù violin known as the Ladenburg, formerly played by 19th-century virtuoso Nicolò Paganini and other great violinists. He recorded the Barber concerto for the Telarc label in 1997.
For Americans, the Barber Violin Concerto is "our piece," said Utah Symphony concertmaster Ralph Matson.
"Having joined the repertoire of concertos, that's the one that belongs to us," Matson said. "It's extremely lush and romantic, but the most effective part of the piece is the brilliant and demonic perpetual motion of the last movement — one of the great finishes of all the concertos. Bobby McDuffie has really emerged as a champion of that piece, and he plays the socks off it."
Melding McDuffie's talent and the sound of his glorious instrument with Fischer and the Utah Symphony for the Barber concerto is an idea full of promise, but Fischer is just as earnestly supportive about the merits of a piece audiences won't know as well.
John Adams' 1987 work "Harmonielehre" has an unusual genesis. It developed as the result of a dream Adams had of a huge tanker in the San Francisco Bay that suddenly took off like a rocket ship. The dream gave Adams the will to break through a paralyzing creative block, and its startling image inspired the exciting opening sequence of "Harmonielehre."
"Few will have heard it live or on CD when they come, but I am absolutely convinced that 100 percent of the audience will say, 'Wow! I want to hear it again, now,' " said Fischer, with great animation.
Though Adams borrowed the name of Arnold Schoenberg's "Book of Harmony," in which Schoenberg laid out the principles of atonalism, Adams' work is antithetical to Schonberg's, and geared to entice listeners to the concert hall.
"He deliberately wrote something tonal and very easy to hear," Fischer said. "It's incredibly powerful, very Romantic, very John Adams."
Fischer was just getting started with superlatives to describe "Harmonielehre," adding that it's "extravagant, stupefying, breathtaking, spectacular and colorful, and very complex to perform."
The Utah Symphony has scheduled extra rehearsals to dissect and reassemble "Harmonielehre" with Fischer, who compares the act of performing it to driving at 260 mph in a car.
"You can't make one single mistake of one inch, or you're dead," he said. "We wouldn't be dead, but we would have to stop if we make a mistake. It's that kind of challenge."
"Harmonielehre's" hair-raising ride is contrasted on the program with Mozart's Symphony No. 1, written when Mozart was 8 years old, but with the assurance of a mature artist.
Music of the Classical era is a specialty for Fischer. He trained under Austrian conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt, a world authority on historically accurate performances of the music of Mozart and his peers. He has specific plans about exploring that repertoire with the Utah Symphony.
By conducting Mozart's first symphony this week, Fischer links back to an October Utah Symphony program in which he conducted Haydn's first symphony. The music of young masters merits performances for its freshness and historic importance, Fischer said, but he also hinted that the performances are preparatory to "something major coming in the future — a very strong project."
After this week's concerts, Fischer will be busy fulfilling commitments made before he became the Utah Symphony's music director. He stays in daily contact with orchestra leaders via phone, Skype and e-mail, but won't be on the Abravanel Hall podium again until he conducts Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" in May.
McDuffie returns
American violinist Robert McDuffie joins the Utah Symphony and music director Thierry Fischer in music of Samuel Barber, John Adams and W.A. Mozart.
When • Friday and Saturday, Jan. 7 and 8, at 8 p.m.
Where • Abravanel Hall, 123 W. South Temple, Salt Lake City.
Tickets • $15-$50 at 801-355-ARTS or http://www.usuo.org. Subscribers (and those seeking group or student discounts) should call 801-533-NOTE. Ticket prices increase $5 on the day of the performance.