Wang and Hrůša at Severance

The Cleveland Orchestra performed a varied program with guest conductor Jakub Hrůša and pianist Yuja Wang this weekend. 

The concert began with Bohuslav Martinů’s Parables, a triptych with which I was unfamiliar. The programmatic work was presented with a mix of orchestral color and a picturesque quality that befitted the 1958 piece. One would never guess the Orchestra was presenting the work for the first time given the technical finish and ease with this they performed the piece.  

After a brief break during which the stage extension with the Hamburg Steinway piano and supplementary percussion was raised, Yuja Wang strode on stage to begin the Bartók Piano Concerto No. 1. I am only passingly familiar with this, the least popular of Bartók’s three piano concertos. While I cannot provide a detailed analysis, I can relate that Wang’s interpretation and delivery were more convincing than Vladimir Ashkenazy’s recording. For one thing, Wang was able to play with an appropriately percussive sound without lapsing into an unpleasant and unmusical sonority. It’s rare when a work such as this brings the audience to its feet, but Wang and the orchestra pulled it off. The audience, from which nary a cough was heard, was rewarded with two encores: Arrangements of Mozart’s Turkish March and Gluck’s Melodie from Orfeo ed Euridice.

Wang has come under criticism in some circles both for her musicianship and the haute couture she wears during her performances. I can report that last night she wore a dazzling yet tasteful black sequined dress. As for the other criticism, I have heard nothing from Wang – either last night or in her recordings – to support the snide remarks made by some critics and on some Internet chat boards. After decades observing and participating in the Classical scene, I can dismiss them as the typical mix of jealousy and pedantry that are part of the cause of the decline in Classical audiences.  (The criticism of Lang Lang, however, is justified owing the musical hash he makes of nearly everything he plays.) 

Wang has appeared in Zsolt Bognár’s interview series, Living the Classical Life, and I am delighted to present the interview below: 

The Brahms Fourth is one of my five “desert island” Symphonies. (The other four, in no particular order, are Mozart’s “Jupiter”, Beethoven’s Seventh, Schubert’s “Great” C major, and Rachmaninoff’s Second.) In terms of musical architecture, Brahms’ E minor Symphony is probably the most perfect work in that genre of the post-Beethoven era. The opening movement’s themes and motifs are developed in a totally organic manner; it is one of the rare symphonic opening movements without an introduction (Brahms composed and discarded one early on). Leonard Bernstein analyzed the many wonders of this movement far better than I could. The finale’s passacaglia is an homage to Bach but delivered in a Brahmsian manner. 

Sadly, Hrůša chose a rather lethargic tempo for the opening Allegro non troppo, and from there gave in to the urge to slow down and brood over individual passages. The second movement, a moderate Andante, was paced appropriately but suffered from limp phrasing and a lack of dynamic contrast. The Scherzo came off best, with the triangle passages a bit more prominently heard than usual – or perhaps it was the acoustics of Severance Hall’s row W, where we sat. The finale, like the opening movement, is best heard in a fairly straight line – it’s essentially a headlong slow-motion descent into Hell. Hrůša started off well, but midway started alternating between the accelerator and the brake so the sense of inevitability was disrupted. In the end, Brahms’ greatest symphony, which reconciles the Classic and Romantic traditions, was gently ruined by Hrůša’s essentially immature conception.

Brahms, Martinů, and Kaprálová with Hrůša at Severance

This weekend’s Cleveland Orchestra concerts featured the return of guest conductor Jakub Hrůša, leading the orchestra in works both familiar and unfamiliar.

The concert opened with the Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90 by Johannes Brahms.  Although it is a relatively popular symphony, it’s challenging to perform.  Even structural masters like Toscanini struggled with this work.  Hrůša plunged headlong into the opening movement, which included the repeat.  Despite the constant sense of momentum and pulse, it never seemed rushed.  The second movement was beautifully contemplative with unexaggerated pianissimos in the high strings.  The third movement, with its popular theme, featured plasticity of phrasing without descending into schmaltz.  This brought us to a finale featuring bracing syncopation and exhilaration leading to the work’s serene end.

Following intermission, Hrůša returned to conduct the Symphony No. 3 by Bohuslav Martinů.  I’d never heard this work before, either in concert or on recordings.  So, I can only comment that the work was plainly written during the Second World War.  An atmosphere of stark foreboding runs through much of the work, yet it wasn’t without moments of joy.  I look forward to familiarizing myself more with this piece.

The concert’s final work was Vítězslava Kaprálová’s Military Sinfonietta, Op. 11.  This piece was composed nearly a decade before the Martinů – even though he was Kaprálová’s teacher (and, briefly, lover).  This is the work of a young and talented composer, with numerous interesting passages, yet it does not quite gel.  Sadly, Kaprálová died when she was 25, so one is left wondering “what might have been.”

Both post-intermission works were being played by the orchestra for the first time, yet the performances were entirely assured and polished – testimony to the skills of both the orchestra and the conductor.  With the departure of music director Franz Welser-Möst in just over a year, I’ve little doubt that Hrůša is a serious contender for the post.

Kabeláč, Stravinsky, and Shostakovich under Hrůša at Severance

During the early 1940s, George Szell was one of many musicians displaced by the war in Europe and living in the United States.  Arturo Toscanini, by then a living legend and head of the NBC Symphony, invited Szell to guest conduct his orchestra in 1941.  Szell led two concerts, one of which can be heard here.  The rehearsals for those concerts were fraught, as Toscanini did not approve of Szell’s rehearsal technique and let Szell know in explosive terms.  But the quality of the NBC performance under Szell speaks for itself.  Contrast that with Szell’s own behavior two decades later.  By then, Toscanini was dead, Szell was music director of the Cleveland Orchestra and had raised their standards to the point that Cleveland was considered to have the best orchestra in the United States – perhaps even the world.  Leopold Stokowski, as much a living legend as Toscanini had been and a polar opposite to Szell musically, visited for a series of guest concerts.  Szell was present at the first rehearsal as the mercurial conductor began altering balances and encouraged the strings to bow freely.  The orchestra manager, sitting next to Szell, feared Szell may explode much as Toscanini had done in 1941.  Instead, as Stokowski began conducting a Cleveland Orchestra that suddenly sounded like the pre-1936 Philadelphia Orchestra, Szell looked toward the manager and smiled.  In Szell’s smile was the implication that “his” orchestra could turn on a dime and serve the musical needs of any conductor. 

Last night’s concert, under guest conductor Jakub Hrůša and dedicated to 20^th Century music, proved the Cleveland Orchestra can still turn on a dime when needed.  Whether the results were to the advantage of the music depended on the composition and listener’s taste. 

The first work, by Czech composer Miloslav Kabeláč, was entirely new to me and new to the orchestra.  Mystery of Time is essentially a mood piece, beginning quietly and slowly and building in volume and speed until a raucous conclusion.  Parts of the work reminded me of Howard Shore’s score to Silence of the Lambs which was, of course, composed decades later – so Shore may have been influenced by this piece.

The Hamburg Steinway was then brought on stage for Stravinsky’s Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra, featuring soloist Emanuel Ax – a genial and welcome presence here.  I’ve only heard this work once before, in a less than convincing recording under Robert Craft’s direction with soloist Philippe Entremont.   Hrůša and Ax brought a more unified conception to the work – which can sound disjointed in the wrong hands – which sacrificed nothing in terms of spontaneity and wit.  The performance was warmly received and Ax gifted the audience with an encore: Chopin’s Waltz in A minor, poetically played.

The second half of the program was dedicated to Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony – a work which the orchestra has played since it was “hot off the press.”  The story of this work’s composition is so well known it hardly needs repeating, but here it is:  Shostakovich’s previous works, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District and The Limpid Stream, were met with official disapproval, which in 1930s Russia carried significant threat.  He set aside his Fourth Symphony, then in rehearsals, and began composing on the Fifth, which was touted in the state-controlled press as “a Soviet artist’s creative response to justified criticism".  The work’s premiere was triumphant and restored Shostakovich’s reputation among Soviet power-brokers.  It is a work of the most profound suffering, with every appearance of major key relief a trap-door into more heartbreak, until the finale where there appears to be a sense of victory – at least on the surface.  It wasn’t until decades later that it was revealed that the symphony’s “triumphant” coda was intentionally hollow – a depiction of a man being told he’s never had it so good while being savagely beaten.  The work’s conclusion is thus, in many ways, similar to the protagonist’s “love” for Big Brother at the end of George Orwell’s 1984 – after being brainwashed into believing that love is hate, and vice versa.

Hrůša’s interpretation was one that emphasized the work’s extremes.  I’ve never heard the Cleveland Orchestra play so quietly or loudly: softly enough that they were barely audible even on the main floor; loudly enough that some players were pushed beyond their normal tonal capacity.  While this served to bring out certain elements of the piece, in particular the jingoism of the second movement, there were a number of wrong notes from woodwinds and brass, as well as faulty balances.  On the other hand, there were elements of the scoring that I’d never heard before, in particular during the climax of the work’s searing Largo.  Further, Hrůša emphasized the dissonance in some of the part-writing that other conductors, in particular Stokowski and Bernstein, glossed over.  This was not a heartfelt Shostakovich Fifth, of the sort led by Stanisław Skrowaczewski in 2015, but a raw performance which uncovered the brutality of Stalin’s Russia.  It was one of many legitimate approaches to this complicated work, which held the audience’s attention and roused them at the end.

Cleveland welcomes Sheku Kanneh-Mason

The Cleveland Orchestra hosted the return of guest conductor Jakub Hrůša and the Cleveland debut of cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason this past weekend.  The repertoire featured ranged from the unfamiliar to the slightly familiar – something of a pattern this season.

The concert opened with the Ballade in A minor, Op. 33 by British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.  The work, composed in 1898, marked the professional conducting debut of the young man who was born out of wedlock into one of London’s poorest neighborhoods in 1875.  The Ballade is in the mid-Romantic style of Tchaikovsky and Dvořák – with similar orchestration.  Hrůša and the orchestra contributed a performance marked by sensible tempi and technical polish.  As I’d never heard this music before, I can’t compare it to any other performances or recordings.

Elgar’s Cello Concerto was initially a flop when it was premiered in 1919.  The work’s failure, the result of an unrehearsed performance, deeply wounded the composer (not for the first time in history, as Rachmaninoff’s First Symphony suffered the same fate as conducted by a drunken Alexander Glazunov).  The concerto did not achieve notability until the 1960s when Jaqueline du Pré began championing the piece – but still it’s not a repertoire staple.  To be sure, the concerto is a stark, challenging work.   Composed in the aftermath of a serious illness and during the First World War, it features moments of soaring lyricism contrasted with an almost agonized temperament – a world away from the same composer’s Pomp and Circumstance marches or even the Enigma Variations. 

Sheku Kanneh-Mason became a sensation in 2018 when he played at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle – a televised event seen by some two billion people.  At the time I was stuck by the beauty of Kanneh-Mason’s playing and surety of his technique.  Needless to say, anyone who can play with such serenity and finish in front of so many demonstrates the quality of grace under pressure.  To the Elgar Concerto, Kanneh-Mason brought impeccable technique, variety of tonal shadings, and an ample dynamic range  - all put in service to the music.  Hrůša and the orchestra collaborated with an intensity of expression that matched the soloist.  The performance was followed by a very enthusiastic and sustained ovation, which led Kanneh-Mason to gift the audience with an encore: a brief contemplative piece which was unfamiliar to me.

Sheku Kanneh-Mason receives a well-earned ovation.

I first heard Dvořák’s Sixth Symphony as a teenager, listening to a scratchy 78rpm album of the work found in my grandmother’s basement as played by the Cleveland Orchestra under Erich Leinsdorf.  Aside from the third movement Scherzo, a delightful Furiant characterized by alternating two-beat and three-beat measures and surprise cadences, I found the work unmemorable.  But I was only about 16 years old, and my musical ideas were not fully formed – if they ever are.  I’ve heard the work several times over the years, and while there are worthy passages in every movement, along with fine orchestration, I find the work does not exceed the sum of its parts the way the composer’s last three Symphonies do.  Hrůša led the opening movement in an expansive manner, with dashes of orchestral color that revealed the work’s rustic character.  The work’s second movement Agagio was serene and soulful, with lovely woodwind playing.  The Furiant went at a bouncing tempo that was, well, furious, with the movement’s tricky rhythms tossed-off impeccably – an example of brilliant orchestra playing that resulted in an audible “whoo!” from a member of the audience.  Following on that, the finale insinuated itself into the proceedings with merriment until an unbuttoned, declamatory coda that, as they say, brought the house down.