The Summers at Severance series continued with guest conductor Christoph Koncz leading The Cleveland Orchestra in music of Hungarian composers Franz Liszt, Ernő Dohnányi, and Bela Bartók.
The concert began with one of Liszt’s better-known
orchestral works, Les
préludes (Symphonic Poem No. 3).
Truth be told, I’ve never been a huge fan of this piece, nor any of
Liszt’s works for orchestra. It’s always
sounded like rather pompous film-music to me.
But Koncz made a convincing case for the work, with a crisp presentation
of the material, devoid of mawkishness, sentimentality, or phony swagger.
Ernő Dohnányi
(sometimes referred to as Ernst von Dohnányi) was the father of Hans von Dohnányi,
who was murdered by the Nazi regime for his resistance to Hitler, and the
grandfather of Christoph von Dohnányi,
who was conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra from 1984-2002. The Symphonic Minutes, Op. 36, from 1933, is
an entirely new work to me. The five
short movements - with their very interesting use of rhythm, piquant harmonies,
and orchestration - were a delight to hear.
Following intermission, the concert concluded
with a surefire hit: Bartók’s
Concerto for Orchestra. Koncz led
the orchestra in a performance which was well structured and proportioned, with
clear balances, humor in the Interrupted Intermezzo (to the extent that I had
to keep myself from laughing out loud at the parody of the theme from
Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony), and spectacular brass playing in the finale.
As a conductor, Christoph Koncz provides direction
for the orchestra without needing to put on a balletic show for the
audience. One would like to hear him in
more varied repertoire, but based on what I heard and saw last night, he should
be on the short list as a possible successor to Franz Welser-Möst.
Despite the hall being only about half-full, the
audience was attentive and highly enthusiastic.
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