The Dallas Symphony Orchestra goes backward under Fabio Luisi

 Yeah, I "get" that the loss of revenue from a mostly live-attendance-free 2020-21 season may tempt the DSO to play yet more warhorses this year to bring back the blue-haired ladies.

But, ye gads, this is dreck.

A new work by Kevin Puts, former composer in residence at Cowtown, is the one close to new thing on the agenda. He's nice, but broadly tonal and within that, not "stimulating."

Joan Tower? An older, more recognized Kevin Puts.

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor is new to the DSO, but not new music or even close. (And, there's a reason his violin concerto is overlooked, and no, he's NOT the "Black Mahler.") Bland late Romantic warhorses for the return of Andrew Litton sounds about right.

Seriously. 

Still no serial music. No second-generation serial music. No non-serial atonal music of modern times. You know, like the original Second Vienna Trio on the first. An Ernst Krenek or serial-era Stravinsky on the second. A Penderecki or Schnittke on the third.

Instead, a bunch of dreck. 

And, I've already said that on the old masters, Luisi doesn't really impress me.

Update, April 4, 2024: Yet more reason to take a pass on Luisi? Per this great New Yorker piece about a sad recent trend in the classical world, he's spread too thin:

Fabio Luisi is spread across three continents, maintaining roles at the Dallas Symphony, the Danish National Symphony, and the NHK Symphony, in Japan.

Per the piece, it's not quite as bad as its focal point, Klaus Mäkelä, who not only currently runs the Concertgebouw but is tapped to help Chicago in 2027 — while (at least until he says he's leaving) staying in Amsterdam as well. And, while neither Dallas nor the NHK (dunno about the Danish National) are top-tier, they're both solidly enough in the second tier that they shouldn't be sharing a music director. A Luisi could do one or the other of the two, plus the Danish. And, even be principal guest conductor at a third, smaller orchestra if the ego or tightening corporate symphonic sponsorships demanded. But, that's it.

That said, there's more.

That is snarkily topped by this:

American orchestra subscribers have become resigned to a phony civic ritual: a foreign-accented maestro flies in a few times a season for two or three weeks, stays in a hotel or a furnished apartment, attends a flurry of donor dinners, and dons the appropriate cap when the local baseball team makes the playoffs.

Oof. When Jaap van Zweden was in Dallas, he seemed reasonably involved. But, it was the only orchestra where he was the music director. Speaking of, the piece notes that he and the NY Phil have parted ways. For the Seoul Philharmonic and the French Radio Philharmonic, to style it in English? Wow, what a tumble.

Wiki's page on Luisi adds this, which fits perfectly with the New Yorker snark:

Outside of music, his hobbies include the production of his line of perfumes.

Oy.