Beethoven and Bartók at Severance

The last-minute substitution of the scheduled guest conductor didn’t impair the performance at Severance over this past weekend, as the orchestra delivered performances even more refined than usual.  The guest conductor was Kahchun Wong, who hails from Singapore, making his Cleveland Orchestra debut.

The shortish program began with Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, featuring Christian Tetzlaff as soloist.  The performance was marked by pronounced flexibility of tempo along with uncanny balancing between soloist and conductor, featuring pianissimos that the composer would not have been able to hear.  Tetzlaff’s solution was elegant yet inventive: He arranged Beethoven’s own cadenza from his piano arrangement of the Violin Concerto (created at the request of Muzio Clementi) for violin - with timpani accompaniment as written by Beethoven.  A sustained ovation followed the performance and the audience was gifted with an encore, the slow movement from J. S. Bach’s Sonata in A minor.

Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta followed the intermission.  The conductor, whose visual style was a mix of theatricality and subtle details, paid particular attention to dynamics with numerous felicities unheard on even the finest recordings.  The punching rhythm of the second movement Allegro remained in the ears, and feet, following the concert.