Review: A Fort Worth Symphony concert with extra-musical associations

The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra leaned into audience connection with a concert at Bass Performance Hall that blended classical repertoire with “extra-musical” staging. Principal horn Gerald Wood introduced the program on video before playing Benjamin Britten’s Serenade for tenor, horn and strings. Under guest conductor Jane Glover, the Britten was paired with Missy Mazzoli’s Orpheus Undone and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, the Pastoral. Mazzoli’s 16-minute, two-movement work includes a prominent ticking wood block and complex layering. For Britten’s Serenade, texts were projected as supertitles, while Wood switched between a valved and a valveless 19th-century horn. The review also notes issues with tenor Ian Bostridge’s exaggerated dynamics.