Severance
Hall
March
27
Still a favorite with Cleveland audiences. |
By
the time the concert ended on Thursday night, even the Cleveland
Orchestra players were applauding conductor Christoph von Dohnányi.
That echoed the warm welcome the Music Director Laureate received at
the beginning of the evening from an appreciative hometown audience,
whom he rewarded with two Schumann sweets.
More
than 10 years after his departure, von Dohnányi
still has an ease and familiarity with the orchestra that few can
match. This stems not only from his extended tenure in Cleveland
(1982 – 2002), but a long career working with first-class
orchestras around the world. He has a fine sense of color, texture
and balance, which he shifted for the Schumann symphonies, reversing
the usual position of the lower strings – violas stage left, and
cellos and bass stage right.
Conducting
on Thursday without a score, von Dohnányi
seemed effortless in his ability to drive the music with flowing
rhythms and agile turns of tone and tempo. And he obviously knows the
ensemble very well. From the very first bars of the opening Symphony
No. 4, the trademark sound of the Cleveland Orchestra was in full
flower: warm, lush, richly detailed and sweeping in romantic
grandeur.
Opening
with No. 4 and ending with No. 2 flopped the symphonies
chronologically but made sense programmatically, as the latter is the
stronger and more satisfying work. No. 4 is a revision of a
piece that flopped when it premiered in 1841, got shelved, then was
dusted off and reorchestrated for a more successful performance in
1851, conducted by the composer himself. The symphony was a staple
in the Cleveland Orchestra’s repertoire under George Szell, who not
surprisingly used his own version of the score. Christoph von
Dohnányi has carried on
that tradition, last leading the orchestra in a performance of the
piece in 2007.
What
stood out in Thursday’s performance was its vibrancy, a rhythmic
flow and propulsive quality that gave the music a dynamic pulse.
Never flashy, it nonetheless brimmed with color, though not much
detail – von Dohnányi
seemed more interested in grand gestures. These had a wonderful
freshness and spontaneity, with a lot of snap in the sound. Otherwise
the performance was a bit ragged around the edges, with an unusually
anemic showing from the woodwinds. But it finally caught fire with a
thrilling statement of the theme in the third movement, then picked
up drama with bold statements by the brass and dashed to a crisp
close.
Both
conductor and players seemed to hit stride in the second half with a
markedly better performance of No. 4. The sound was clear and
sharp, sparkling in the brighter passages and electric in finishing
out movements. The rhythmic flow was a marvel – by midway through
the first movement, the orchestra was positively purring. That
exuberant quality carried through a lively second movement which gave
way to gentle, delicate touches in the Adagio. The finale was
captivating, with rich woodwinds underpinning a lustrous, galloping
romp.
It’s
normal for Severance audiences to stand and applaud after every
concert, though rare to see them snapping pictures with cell phones,
as they did on Thursday. Beyond the lingering affection for von
Dohnányi, that enthusiasm
reflected the infectious energy of the performance, even
more remarkable in being generated by an 84-year old maestro.
And
von Dohnányi is a class
act, taking his bows from the floor with the musicians. It took
several curtain calls and the musicians staying in their seats for
him to step back on the podium for a final burst of applause. Both
onstage and in the audience, there was genuine joy at hearing that
vibrant energy in the orchestra again.
For
more on Christoph von Dohnányi:
http://www.colbertartists.com/ArtistBio.asp?ID=christoph-von-dohnanyi
Photo by Chris Lee/New York Philharmonic
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