Music Review: Orchestra of St. Luke's at Carnegie Hall

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Friday, 08 April 2011 15:00

Written by Jack Angstreich

On the evening of Wednesday, April 6th, 2011, I attended one of the most satisfying concerts of the season, at Carnegie Hall, given by the superb Orchestra of St. Luke's, under the exceptionally assured direction of Ivan Fischer, one of the best living conductors.

 

The program opened with a delightful, snappy reading of Sergei Prokofiev's splendid "Classical" Symphony. Appearing supremely relaxed, Fischer skirted the unorthodox by accelerating the tempos in the work's outer movements but nonetheless elicited a performance characterized by forcefulness and clarity, bringing out all the abundant wit in the piece, while thoughtfully and sensitively highlighting dynamic contrasts.

 

In the magnificent Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, Fischer also produced unusually fast accounts of the outer movements but this approach seemed to converge without strain with the intense Romanticism pervading the work. The soloist Nikolaj Znaider played with astonishing virtuosity and, after an exhilarating ovation, performed, exquisitely, the Sarabande from Bach’s Partita No. 2 in D minor.

 

The evening concluded, on an exalted note, with a powerful, moving reading of the enthralling Symphony No. 7 by Antonín Dvorak.

 

Program                                                                                                     

Symphony No. 1, "Classical"  by SERGEI PROKOFIEV

Violin Concerto by PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY

Symphony No. 7 in D Minor, Op. 70 by ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK

Encore:  JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Sarabande from Partita No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1004

 

Orchestra of St. Luke's
Iván Fischer, Conductor                                                                                              NikolajZnaider, Violin

Carnegie Hall

881 Seventh Avenue at 57th Street
New York, NY 10019

212-247-7800
www.carnegiehall.org