Haydn & Beethoven with Queyras and Herreweghe at Severance

Largely comfortable and familiar classics were on the menu at tonight’s Cleveland Orchestra concert at Severance, featuring guest conductor Philippe Herreweghe and, in the Haydn, cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras.

In 1950, Leopold Stokowski traveled to Cleveland for his overdue debut here.  At the first rehearsal, as recalled by assistant conductor Louis Lane, a few comments from Stokowski about bowing and attack were sufficient that, after 15 minutes, the orchestra’s sonority was transformed to sound like the Philadelphia Orchestra, circa 1936.  74 years later, Herreweghe has managed to do the same – in the opposite direction: I have never heard the Cleveland Orchestra play with such inexpressivity. 

The concert began with a rushed, dynamically constricted rendition of Beethoven’s “Egmont” Overture.  The reduced string section here robbed dynamic climaxes of what Beethoven certainly intended as a dramatic effect, and the lack of string vibrato left much of the work sounding uncharacteristically anemic.  It almost seemed as if I was listening to an overly filtered, old mono recording of the orchestra.  Egmont was composed as incidental music for a play by Goethe about Lamoral, Count of Egmont, whose rhetoric and subsequent execution helped rouse his countrymen to overthrow Spanish invaders and form an independent Netherlands.  A heroic tale.  But in Herreweghe’s hands, the overture was more incidental than heroic.   

Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C major, composed in the 1760s, then lost until its rediscovery in 1961, proved the high point of the evening.  One could take the cellist’s technique for granted, particularly his navigation of the finale’s rapid passagework in the instrument’s treacherous upper range.  Then there was his tone, which was lean yet full, lyrical yet not syrupy.  Best of all, Queyras brought tasteful expressivity and a joyous sense of communicativeness to the solo part – while always blending with the ensemble.  This performance received the warmest applause of the evening, and Queyras responded with a double encore: a Bach prelude preceded by a brief Ukrainian folk song – a poignant reminder that Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine began two years ago today.      

Queyras after the performance.

Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, was subtitled by the composer himself: "Pastoral Symphony, or Recollections of Country Life."  It is in five movements instead of the customary four.  I’ve loved this work since the first time I heard it, at the age of 14.  The opening movement, depicting the “awakening of cheerful feelings on arrival in the countryside”, was brisk – as if the composer was in a hurry to get out of Vienna.  The second movement, titled “Scene by the brook,” fared better – the reduced strings making it easier to hear contributions from the winds – particularly the nightingale, quail, and cuckoo that Beethoven ingeniously wrote into the music.  This was followed by the villagers’ dance, which resounded with merriment – the high point of the performance.  The fourth movement’s storm was not cataclysmic, just some rain and a few minor flashes of lightning, followed by a noncommittal song of Thanksgiving.  The main floor of the hall appeared to be at about two-thirds capacity, with a few people leaving during the final movement, and many more not bothering to join in the applause after the Symphony’s conclusion.