New Jersey Symphony achieves great heights playing music by Holst and others

ROB DAVIDSON

Xian Zhang conducts New Jersey Symphony, playing Holst’s “The Planets.”

With her feet on the ground and her eyes on the heavens, conductor Xian Zhang and the New Jersey Symphony took audiences on an interplanetary adventure between the two realms at The State Theatre in New Brunswick, NJPAC in Newark and The Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown.

“Holst’s The Planets — An HD Odyssey” was presented from Jan. 30 to Feb. 2. (I attended Feb. 2 in Morristown, though the photos used in this article are from Feb. 1 in Newark.) The concerts explored the contrasts between the cosmos and earthly enchantments with Caroline Shaw’s The Observatory, followed by Ralph Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending with guest violinist Nancy Zhou, and Gustav Holst’s title piece, featuring Montclair State University’s Prima Voce choir. The program was tailored to the orchestra’s 2024-25 season theme, which looks toward broader and more mystical horizons, and celebrates the wonders of the natural world.

Holst and Vaughan Williams, whose works on the program are both symphonic staples, met as students at the Royal College of Music in London and shared a lifelong friendship. Along with Elgar, they embraced English folk traditions and created a national music identity, effectively breaking away from the longstanding European models.

ROB DAVIDSON

Violinist Nancy Zhou performs with New Jersey Symphony, conducted by Xian Zhang.

The Lark Ascending, an eloquent romance for solo violin and orchestra, is based on George Meredith’s 1881 poem of the same name. The serene music has a challenging, stunning opening, played by solo violin on the fingerboard; it replicates the lighthearted flight of the lark over the English countryside. It needs great delicacy, which soloist Zhou handled with agility and fine control of tone.

Beneath a large screen above the orchestra that showed videos of birds in their natural habitats, she played with rhythmic precision and supple shifts, bringing out the work’s poetic reflections and earthy lyricism. Sections were subtly shaded with accented bowings for the poetic, parlando parts and legato for the lyrical, singing parts.

The Observatory provided a point of departure to the stars. The well-knit orchestral work was inspired by Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles; videos included aerial views of the famous landmark perched on Mount Hollywood. Farther out, assorted galaxies swirled over the night sky.

The work references famous tunes by Strauss, Bach, Sibelius and Brahms, as noted in the program notes, and shows off Shaw’s fearlessness and natural fluency as a composer. (Later on Feb. 2, she won her fifth Grammy, for her Rectangles and Circumstance collaboration with Sō Percussion.)

Zhang is familiar with the work, having conducted the premiere in 2019 at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. It opens with large, rich chords, revisited with a twist at the finale. Concentrated motifs and catapulting arpeggios orbit around abstract spaces like shooting stars and satellites. Piano interludes were played sensitively by Molly Morkoski, who later played a twinkling celeste in Planets.

Shaw’s work was a thematic launchpad into Planets, an orchestral suite of seven movements based on some of the astronomical bodies within our solar system. Characterized by their astrological and mythological personas, the work progresses from war to peace, beginning with “Mars, the Bringer of War” and ending with “Neptune, the Mystic.”

ROB DAVIDSON

Nancy Zhou, Xian Zhang and New Jersey Symphony musicians.

When Holst composed the work between 1914 and 1916, planetary images were far off and vague, and his depictions are different from how we understand the planets today. A film by Duncan Copp, in cooperation with NASA, used photographs and videos from various spacecrafts orbiting the planets — the mesmerizing rings of Saturn and Jupiter’s Great Red Spot.

It gave a sense of proportion to the work, re-examining our place on Earth in a vast, ancient galaxy. This was reflected in Zhang’s approach: a well-proportioned, clear-headed study of its endless, expressive contrasts. Moods and colors were good-spirited and optimistic, even in the second half’s darker and stormier themes. An excellent sense of rhythm and pulse kept cohesive section work at a steady flow. Gentler movements gave section leaders breathing room to engage as soloists.

Holst depicted the opening movement, “Mars,” named after the Roman god of war, as warlike. Conductors often muscle through it with the ferocity of a military march. Zhang seemed to make it less threatening by amplifying the more unnerving, anxious and restless moods. Ample brass, disciplined organ (played by John Miller) and larger woodwinds added intensity and dramatic, marching rhythms in the lower registers.

Dreamy, tranquil melodies by principal horn Chris Komer and associate concertmaster Brennan Sweet played up the warm lullabies of the “Venus” movement alongside two harps and the celestial harmonies of the celesta. Melting strings of the second violins ended the movement quietly, with a sense of loss that contrasted nicely against the playful “Mercury” scherzo. Principal percussionist David Fein captured Mercury’s swift spirit through nimble, skipping passages on the bells.

“Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity” elicited the biggest applause from concertgoers for its well-known, central section (which became the British patriotic hymn “I Vow to Thee, My Country”), and was given decorum and deeply felt conviction by the musicians. Elsewhere, bouncy brass and dancerly lines captured the movement’s more majestic and cheerful melodies. In “Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age,” solemn and disquieting chords gave way to the stunning march, anchored by the standing strings. Shapely solos from principal flute Bart Feller and principal oboe Robert Ingliss touched on the mysticism that Holst sprinkled throughout the score.

A lively pulse animated the darker movements of outer planets, starting with “Uranus.” Boisterous lower woodwinds led by principal bassoon Robert Wagner brought whimsy and enchantment to the darker moods and timbres.

“Neptune” closes with a women’s choir singing in wordless voices to create a sense of transcendence and to underline the fragility of mankind, adrift in a vast, chaotic universe. Prima Voce — a MSU choir of sopranos and altos joined by other Montclair choristers, singers and alumnae under the direction of Heather J. Buchanan — was stationed (mostly) out of sight in the back balcony, creating a marvelous sense of space as their ethereal voices faded off into the distance. They added a magical touch.