Franz is back. Music Director Franz Welser-Möst, having successfully completed treatment for cancer, returned to leading the Cleveland Orchestra several weeks ago. This was my first chance to see him since his return. This evening’s concert was testimony that he is in excellent form, despite a rather uneven concert overall.
The first half of the concert featured the music of Maurice
Ravel, and began with the Rapsodie espagnole. Having just returned from Spain three weeks
ago, the work brought back happy memories.
Daniel and I sat in row H, closer than usual. From this vantage point, the orchestra
sounded less burnished than we are used to.
But this resulted in greater clarity and, during the Rapsodie’s more
extroverted sections, a brilliance that never crossed the line into harshness.
The next work was Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major, with
soloist Seong-Jin Cho. This was my first
time hearing Cho, who won the 2015 International Chopin Competition. I’ve heard the Ravel played locally by a
number of pianists, from Jean-Efflam
Bavouzet to Víkingur
Ólafsson. Whatever Cho’s competition
credentials and media hype, his performance of the concerto was a
disappointment, both to me and to a knowledgeable young pianist of my acquaintance
with whom I conversed at intermission.
It wasn’t a question of technique: the piano part was struck off with
amazing clarity – there were aspects of the piano writing that I’d never heard
before. But there was no narrative
through-line due to the excessive attention to detail and pianistic
micromanaging. In the end, Cho was a
soloist, not a collaborator. Welser-Möst
and the orchestra provided an appropriately saucy and jazzy yet polished
accompaniment, but the final result was less than the sum of its parts. Despite that, the audience responded with
enthusiasm and Cho played an encore, the middle movement from Ravel’s Sonatine.
Following intermission, Welser-Möst returned to lead the orchestra in Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No, 4 in F minor, Op. 36. A recording he made with the orchestra was recently issued, but I found this weekend’s performance to be even more convincing. It came down to pacing and balance. The opening movement was propulsive until the lyrical section, where Welser-Möst backed off and let the music breathe. The second movement exuded a restrained nobility, far removed from the hardware, schmaltzy Tchaikovsky that blights too many concert halls. But the best was yet to come: the third movement, marked Scherzo, featured a relatively relaxed pace and exquisite pizzicatos from the strings, played pianissimo, with higher dynamics during the wind dominated central section. This set the stage for a finale which was off the charts exhilarating. One of Welser-Möst’s strengths is his understanding of structure, which Tchaikovsky needs. Another strength is Welser-Möst’s ability to built a climax without losing control. The coda of the work was an example, where the conductor accelerated the already headlong tempo driving the symphony to a stunning conclusion that brought the audience cheering to its feet.
Welcome home, Franz!
