MET Orchestra Perform American Musical Greats at Carnegie Hall

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Thursday, 19 February 2026 14:24

Written by Jack Angstreich

Photo by Jennifer Taylor

At the wonderful Stern Auditorium, on the night of Wednesday, February 4th, I had the privilege to attend an excellent concert—presented by Carnegie Hall—featuring the outstanding MET Orchestra under the peerless direction of Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

The even began auspiciously with a sterling account of the undervalued Negro Folk Symphony of William L. Dawson, the ultimate revision of which was completed in 1952. About the piece, the composer told an interviewer that “the finest compliment that could be paid my symphony … is that it unmistakably is not the work of a white man. I want the audience to say: ‘Only a Negro could have written that.’” The initial movement, titled “The Bond of Africa,” begins with a solemn fanfare—this mood is discernible for longer, but as the movement becomes livelier in tempo, it is overcome by greater levity. In useful notes on the program, Harry Haskell explains:

“The Bond of Africa” opens with a portentous (and very Dvořákian) theme for solo horn that serves as a recurring leitmotif throughout the work; according to the composer, this four-note motto symbolizes the “missing link” that was “taken out of a human chain when the first African was taken from the shores of his native land and sent to slavery.” Contrast is provided by the solo oboe in the form of a perky melody from “Oh, My Little Soul Gwine Shine Like a Star,” the first of three spirituals that Dawson subtly weaves into his symphonic fabric. 

The ensuing movement also has a serious ethos, but again lighter, joyful music comes to the fore, although it alternates with much heavier passages and builds to a powerful series of climaxes, and then finishes very quietly. The annotator comments:

The second movement, “Hope in the Night,” is the most explicitly programmatic of the three. In Dawson’s words, the three introductory gong strokes represent “the Trinity, who guides forever the destiny of man,” while the English horn “sings a melody that describes the characteristics, hopes, and longings of a folk held in darkness.” This theme in turn gives way to playful music depicting children who remain blissfully “unmindful of the heavy cadences of despair.” 

The last movement is dynamic, even dance-like, with some suspenseful moments and, again, high-spirited interludes, concluding abruptly and triumphantly. Haskell adds:

The finale, based in part on the spiritual “O Le’ Me Shine, Shine Like a Morning Star!,” is notable for its rhythmic vitality and colorful battery of percussion instruments, both elements of the revised score that Dawson created after making his first visit to West Africa in 1952.

The piece was very enthusiastically received by the audience.

The stunningly beautiful and marvelous mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard then entered the stage—she wore a fabulous, shimmering pink gown—to magnificently perform Samuel Barber’s exquisite Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Op. 24, from 1947, a setting of an autobiographical text in poetic prose by the eminent author James Agee. The composer interestingly said that the work evokes “the child’s feeling of loneliness, wonder, and lack of identity in that marginal world between twilight and sleep.” The first section is nostalgic, while the second is more animated but with a reflective close. The third part recaptures the sensibility of the first although the music intensifies, and in the last section again the lyricism of the opening returns, before it ends gently.

The second half of the evening was also memorable, starting with Leonard’s magical, movingly sung rendition of Leonard Bernstein’s sensational “Somewhere”—with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim—from the landmark 1957 musical, West Side Story. The program concluded with an accomplished version of the same composer’s fine score for the delightful 1944 ballet, Fancy Free—it was brilliantly choreographed by Jerome Robbins—which affords many of the pleasures of his other popular (and populist) music. Bernstein provided this synopsis of the work:

From the moment the action begins, with the sound of a juke box wailing behind the curtain, the ballet is strictly young wartime America, 1944. The curtain rises on a street corner with a lamp post, a side street bar and New York skyscrapers pricked out with a crazy pattern of lights, making a dizzying backdrop. Three sailors explode on the stage. They are on a 24-hour shore leave in the city and on the prowl for girls. The tale of how they first meet one, then a second girl, and how they fight over them, lose them, and in the end take off after still a third, is the story of the ballet.

The artists deservedly were deservedly, ardently applauded.

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