FORT WORTH — Like a returning hero, Miguel Harth-Bedoya had only to walk onstage at Bass Performance Hall Saturday night to get a rousing standing ovation. There were ovations after each of the concert’s three selections, too, and scattered applause after the first two movements of Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony.
As music director of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra from 2000 to 2020, Harth-Bedoya dramatically transformed a provincial outfit into the very fine ensemble it is today. Now with the title of music director laureate, he was subbing for the originally scheduled Jane Glover, the orchestra’s principal guest conductor, who’s sidelined by an undisclosed injury. Fortunately, Harth-Bedoya was as near as Houston, where he’s now director of orchestras and professor of conducting at Rice University.
Mutual affection was also evident onstage, especially in a dazzling account of Gershwin’s American in Paris. Here was an orchestra engaged in every nerve and sinew — and heart — at one with its conductor, audibly relishing every minute. There was also seductive tenderness in the work’s bluesy episodes.
I was sorry that this was to replace Glover’s programmed Sea Interludes from Britten’s Peter Grimes. But only sorry until the Gershwin got so irresistibly underway. If this wouldn’t put a smile on your face, nothing would. I’d complain only that the famous French taxi horns needn’t have been so loud.
The rest of the program, although reordered, was as Glover planned. Opening the concert, the Beethoven was given a big-band treatment, not a chamber-orchestra performance more in line with early 19th-century norms.
But there was nothing overstuffed or leaden about Harth-Bedoya’s interpretation. If he didn’t always match Beethoven’s lively metronome markings, he kept the music aptly animated for a sizable orchestra in a big, modern hall.
At tempos both exhilarating and more relaxed, the music was always going somewhere, with purpose and strategy. Dynamic contrasts were boldly drawn, but phrases and passages were also beautifully tapered, up and down, when they were meant to. Pianissimos got very quiet indeed, but they had energy.
Haydn’s B-flat major Sinfonia concertante, for violin, cello, oboe and bassoon, was compromised by repeated balance issues. Some, though, may be baked into disparities between modern versions of the solo instruments and those of Haydn’s day.
All four of the soloists Saturday were expert and expressive musicians; all four played beautifully. But guest violinist Nick Eanet’s instrument too often disappeared in combinations, especially with fairly bold projection from interim principal bassoonist George Sakakeeny. Principal oboist Jennifer Corning Lucio and principal cellist Allan Steele found a happy medium in between, Steele dispatching flashy writing with particularly impressive aplomb.
There were balance issues with the orchestra, too, even with appropriately reduced string sections. Horns were repeatedly too prominent, and even winds and strings could have used lighter touches here and there.
But tempos were fitting, the playing skilled and well sprung.
Details: Repeats at 2 p.m. Sunday at Bass Performance Hall, Fourth and Commerce, Fort Worth. $30 to $107. 817-665-6000, fwsymphony.org.