Mozart, Staud, and Tchaikovsky at Severance

Daniel and I headed to Severance last night for our first concert of the Cleveland Orchestra season.  Conductor Franz Welser-Möst and guest soloist Christoph Sietzen provided a program that combined the somewhat familiar with the brand new. 

The news that Welser-Möst will be receiving follow up treatment after the recent removal of a cancerous tumor has been on my mind.  But there was no sign of ill health in either his appearance or his conducting last night.  The opening work, Mozart’s Symphony No. 29 in A major, K. 201 was given a lithe, elegantly propulsive performance.  As is customary with Welser-Möst, tempi leaned toward the brisk side, particularly in the second movement Andante, which went at a pace more closely resembling an Allegretto.  But no one would quibble with the superb balance and transparency that conductor and orchestra brought to the piece.

Following a longer than usual stage change, guest percussionist Christoph Sietzen took his place for Staud’s Whereas the reality trembles, receiving its world premiere performances this weekend.  The work calls for a supplement of percussion instruments large enough that the stage extension had to be employed.  The percussion included, among other accoutrements, a Chinese opera gong, cowbells, bongos, woodblocks, crotales, thunder sheets, along with an oil barrel provided by Broadway Scrap Metals and Terracotta pots courtesy of Petitti Garden Center.  In essence the piece is a concerto for percussion and orchestra, which concerns itself more with texture and instrumental effect than thematic development.  Sietzen worked up quite the sweat as he navigated from instrument to instrument.  As this was a world premiere, I have nothing to compare this performance with, except to state that soloist, conductor, and orchestra were totally committed.  Despite the work’s relative modernity and atonality, the audience responded with an extended ovation.  Sietzen gifted the audience with an encore – a short, contemplative piece composed by a friend of his. 

Before and after the Staud work.

Following intermission, Welser-Möst and the orchestra returned for Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 2 in C minor, Op. 17.  For over a century, the work has been titled (courtesy of a music critic contemporary of the composer’s) the “Little Russian,” owing to Tchaikovsky’s use of three Ukrainian folk songs as thematic material.  Some Western orchestras have now retitled the work “Ukrainian” in a justifiable response to Vladimir Putin’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine.  (Truth be told I resist the use of all nick-names in musical compositions unless given by the composer himself: thus the “Heroic” Polonaise and “Revolutionary” Etude of Chopin are titles I don’t use, but the “Pathetique” Sonata of Beethoven is one I do.)  Whether titled or not, the Second Symphony is an engaging work where the composer’s mature style begins to emerge – although it must be pointed out the symphony was revised seven years after its premiere in 1873.  As with the performance of Dvořák’s New World Symphony last April, Welser-Möst avoided the temptation to lay on the work’s folk themes in favor of musical architecture – and his approach worked.  The coda, with a superbly controlled accelerating crescendo, was particularly effective. 

The conductor will be taking some time off for his cancer treatment.  We wish him a speedy recovery with a minimum of discomfort, followed hopefully by a return to the podium.