Tulsa Symphony Orchestra: Brahms and Kodaly
Tulsa Performing Arts Center
January 10, 2026
Last Saturday’s Tulsa Symphony Orchestra concert, its first of the new year, featured two works by my favorite composer, Johannes Brahms: his Variations on a Theme by Haydn and his second symphony. Before the show, I gave my date, Mr. Tulsa, a brief on these major-league pieces in the classical canon—how ingeniously Brahms treats the theme and variation form by maintaining the harmonic and structural guardrails and concealing the melody among twisting counterpoint, and how his second symphony follows the classical form to a T, with complex romantic harmonies and dense orchestration.
I didn’t school him on the program’s other piece, Dances of Galánta by Zoltán Kodaly, because to be honest I do not care about Kodaly. This piece was the filler, I assured Mr. Tulsa. If classical music were Thanksgiving dinner, Kodaly would be green bean casserole, at most. Maybe a pickle tray. A tasty yet nutritionally useless side dish. Not to say Kodaly isn’t important. He is, but more as a pedagogue, ethnomusicologist, and theoretician than a composer. You study Kodaly, you don’t listen to him.
As the night began, TSO’s ebullient guest conductor, Brett Mitchell, bounded onstage and swept me away with the Haydn Variations as I’d hoped, incidentally fulfilling all my promises to Mr. Tulsa. I was transported by the woody textures of the opening theme, the orchestra’s perfect tempos and flawless execution. The variations led me through a whole landscape of emotions. The horn solos were lovely, and the piccolo that came in near the end was a drop of mercury on top of that moody texture that tugged at my heartstrings, something piccolos rarely do.
But Mr. Tulsa’s eyelids fluttered. He’s concentrating, I thought.
After the applause, Maestro Mitchell really built up the Kodaly. You’re gonna love it, he promised. And while I might not have been converted into a Kodaly fan on Saturday night, TSO performed these dances with virtuoso flair, highlighted by David Carter’s divine clarinet solos, Rebecca Lorenz’s perfectly executed horn solos, and John Rush’s angelic flute. The string section absolutely tore it up as the piece neared the end, casting visions of Hungarians doing some kind of squatty-leg high kicks. It was the best green bean casserole I ever had.
When the piece ended, all my musical bravado evaporated because the audience ate it up. They clapped and hollered, they whistled and hooted, in true Okie style. Mr. Tulsa pounded his hands together, eyes shining.