Kansas City Symphony: Matthias Pintscher - Schubert's Ninth Symphony

Kansas City Symphony: Matthias Pintscher - Schubert's Ninth Symphony at Helzberg Hall - Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts

Matthias Pintscher leads the Kansas City Symphony at Helzberg Hall through two works that couldn't be more different—and that's the reason to be there. Schubert's Ninth Symphony, The Great, brings singing melodies on a grand scale, while Bernstein's Songfest pulls together a kaleidoscope of American voices set to jazz, swing, patriotic song and opera. It's an afternoon with a change of pace built right in: one work ranges among poets and musical styles; the other opens into an expansive orchestral world.

In Schubert's Ninth, the orchestra has room to explore melodies that sing even without words. Its large scale offers a different kind of momentum from Bernstein's changing settings: instead of moving among poets and musical styles, you enter a broad symphonic world. That contrast gives the afternoon another reason to draw you in.

Then there's Songfest, where Bernstein sets poetry by Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, Gertrude Stein and Edgar Allan Poe. Each voice gets its own musical language—sometimes swinging, sometimes solemn, always unexpected. It's American music that refuses to sit still, and Pintscher's conducting brings out the restless energy underneath.

It's a pairing for anyone who likes a strong change of pace: American voices in Bernstein, then Schubert's generous symphonic melodies. For Bernstein's American voices and Schubert's generous melodies, reserve tickets to the Kansas City Symphony's May 16 afternoon performance.