Ravel and Ligeti at Severance Hall

Tonight’s Cleveland Orchestra concert featured a pair of piano concertos performed by guest soloist Yuja Wang, with by guest conductor Petr Popelka.

The opening work was Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, commissioned by pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm due to injuries suffered during the First World War.  Based on his recordings, Wittgenstein (who’s younger brother Ludwig went to elementary school with Adolf Hitler) was not a top-tier pianist.  Yuja Wang is, of course, an extraordinarily gifted pianist, and her gifts were especially well suited to this concerto.  It wasn’t a question of mere technique, although her accuracy, layering of notes, clear articulation, and mastery of the pedal were apparent.  Wang also played with a sense of direction and narrative sweep which are too often missed in performances of this work. Popelka and the orchestra delivered an accompaniment which deemphasized the lusher aspects of the work in favor of a grittier approach.  For example, the opening contrabassoon solo  sounded more menacing than usual. 

The second work was the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra by György Ligeti.  As brilliantly played as the work was by Wang and the orchestra, I could not find myself warming to the piece, which served only to aggravate my tinnitus. 

Wang generously performed two encores: A Latin-sounding rag piece which was unfamiliar to me, and the finale movement from Prokofiev’s Seventh Sonata – which really brought the house down. 

Since many reviews and articles featuring Yuja Wang focus on her couture, I’ll mention that she wore a black dress during the Ravel, and quickly changed into a more colorful one for the Ligeti and encores. 

At intermission, we peeked outside and saw snowfall substantial enough to persuade us to make a premature exit, so we did not stay for the second half of the concert.  As it was, it took us far longer than usual to get home. 

 

Revueltas and Dvořák with Stasevska at Severance

The Cleveland Orchestra continued its contemporary practice of commingling the familiar with the unfamiliar in this weekend’s concerts with guest conductor Dalia Stasevska at Severance Hall.

Silvestre Revueltas’s La Noche de los Mayas was originally created as the score for the 1939 film of the same name, with which I am not familiar.  20 years later, José Yves Limantour arranged the music into a four-movement suite in a manner which structurally resembles a symphony.  The orchestration is highly eclectic; in addition to the usual instruments are the Indian drum, congas, bongos, güiro, metal rattle, and conch shell.  The work opens with a longing theme in A minor before moving into a Scherzo movement that features exhilarating cross rhythms.  From there a romantic andante, titled Night of Yucatán, leads directly into the finale - an extroverted theme and variations which includes shouts from the percussionists.  This is a highly interesting work that is new to me, and I’m looking forward to hearing it again on the orchestra’s Adella app.  The audience response was highly enthusiastic. 

Antonín Dvořák’s best known work is undoubtedly his Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95 - titled “From the New World.”  The story of this work’s creation scarcely needs repeating: the composer, originally from what today is known as the Czech Republic, spent three years in the United States, during which he studied African-American and Native music.  The Symphony is one of several compositions from that era and has been a repertoire favorite for over a Century.  It can be argued that the Cleveland Orchestra is America’s premier Dvořák ensemble, having recorded his Symphonies from the time Erich Leinsdorf was music director onwards.  One can’t avoid mentioning George Szell, who recorded the complete Slavonic Dances, the Piano Concerto (with soloist Rudolf Firkusny), and the last three Symphonies – all of which are considered reference recordings.  Christoph von Dohnányi also made fine recordings of the Slavonic Dances and the four last Symphonies.  While the origins of several of the work’s themes have been analyzed over the decades, what is not often pointed out is that Dvořák’s last symphony is as well structured as any of its counterparts by Brahms, with a thematic cross referencing that enhances the work’s symphonic unity.  As a result of this, this symphony can withstand a variety of interpretive approaches: from the structurally strict Toscanini to the wayward Stokowski.  Franz Welser-Möst led this work in 2023, offering an interpretation that favored a classical, architectonic approach.  Stasevska’s way with this work was more rhapsodic.  True, she observed the first movement repeat, but the freedom of phrasing and plasticity of tempo, not to mention her attention to dynamics, heightened the opening movement’s sense of adventure.  The Largo movement was unusually broad and meditative, with a beautifully sustained cor anglais solo; and the finale was simply epic.  This was a performance to remember, and the audience held its breath as the final notes faded away.

With music director Franz Welser-Möst’s contract ending in less than two years, every appearance by a guest conductor at Severance takes on the nature of an audition.  This is particularly the case when those guest conductors are not currently under contract, as is the case with Stasevska.  Based on both the performance and the audience response at tonight’s concert, Stasevska is definitely a contender. 

My review of DG's new Maurizio Pollini box.

Deutsche Grammophon has issued an updated box of Maurizio Pollini's recordings with that label.  Click here to read my complete review.

Concerts at CIM and Severance with a composition in common

This week saw two different concerts which included one duplicate work, providing an opportunity for comparison and contrast.

The first was at the Cleveland Institute of Music, featuring the first performance of the newly founded CIM Virtuosi.  This is a conductorless string ensemble with CIM faculty member Todd Phillips as leader.

The concert opened with Mozart’s Divertimento for strings in D major, K.136 – a three-movement work completed when the composer was sixteen years old.  No doubt Mozart wrote it intending to be the lead violinist, as there are many rapid passages which could demonstrate his technique.  This was an example of true ensemble playing in which coordination and balance were nearly faultless.

The Divertimento was followed by the same composer’s Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, K.488 with Antonio Pompa-Baldi as soloist.  This necessitated a stage change not just for the piano, but to bring several wind and brass players on stage.  Pompa-Baldi’s way with this oft-performed concerto was a model of interpretive rectitude.  He kept dynamics in check so that he did not drown out the small ensemble – yet he never made the music sound prettified or dainty.  Pompa-Baldi performed an encore, a traditional song from Naples, which was new to me.

As both Daniel and I had to get up early the next day, we didn’t stay for the concert’s post intermission work, Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings in C major, Op. 48.  Though I adore the piece, our eyelids were simply too heavy.

 

Saturday’s Cleveland Orchestra concert, led by music director Franz Welser-Möst, featured music of the 18^th, 19^th, and 21^st Centuries.

The concert opened with a 2020 work by American composer Tyler Taylor: Permissions.  Regular readers will know that I approach new music with an open mind, as I did with this piece.  But my open mind led me to conclude that this 10-minute work was an exercise in sonority and texture without benefit of a substantial idea.  The work has neither a theme nor a sense of dramatic through-line.  Taylor is the Orchestra’s new Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellow.  Permissions was not a good omen for future collaborations.

Soloist Garrick Olhsson performed the same Mozart Concerto as we heard Thursday.  He and Welser-Möst presided over a performance marked by sensible tempos and a sense of interpretive unity.  The pianist brought a bit more emphasis to the left-hand than is often heard, and the second movement was tastefully embellished – as it would have been in Mozart’s own time.  An encore followed: a lovely rendition of Chopin’s Nocturne in D-flat major, Op. 27, No. 2.

 

The concert concluded with Schumann’s Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. 97 – the so-called “Rhenish.”  The work is in five movements instead of the usual four and presents a bit of an interpretive challenge.  Much is said about Beethoven’s influence on Brahms, but part of the noble fourth movement reminded me of Brahms’ First Symphony – which was premiered 25 years after the “Rhenish.”  It’s worth noting that Schumann was an early advocate of Brahms.  Alas, Schumann was not the best orchestrator of his time.  I don’t know if Welser-Möst tinkered with the composer’s orchestration, but the performance featured a bit more clarity than is generally heard in this piece – which was most welcome.  Add to the clarity was a perfect sense of pacing, dynamics, and phrasing – in sum, a memorable performance of a work new to Welser-Möst’s repertoire.