The Bold Sounds of the Cleveland Orchestra at Carnegie Hall

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Wednesday, 08 June 2022 16:20

Written by Jack Angstreich

Cleveland Orchestra with Franz Welser-Möst & Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider. Photo by Chris Lee

At Carnegie Hall on the evening of Wednesday, June 1st, I had the privilege to attend an excellent concert featuring the superb musicians of the Cleveland Orchestra under the magisterial direction of Franz Welser-Möst, one of the finest contemporary conductors.

The program opened with an admirable performance of the Carnegie Hall premiere of the Simfonia No. 4, “Strands,” by African-American composer, George Walker, a modernist piece notable for its impressive orchestration. The outstanding virtuoso, Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider, then entered the stage for a sterling rendition of the early modern Polish composer Karol Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto No. 2, his penultimate work. The program annotator, Hugh Macdonald, describes “a new austerity” in the composer’s music after World War I as contrasted with the luxuriance of his earlier work, adding that, “His model was Béla Bartók, whose fascination with folklore chimed with Szymanowski’s strong sense of Polish identity.” Macdonald’s description of the composition is worth quoting:

Both [of Szymanowski’s] violin concertos are in one continuous movement, and the Second is in two parts, divided by the cadenza. The first part makes persistent use of a theme that circles closely around itself, gently lyrical, with two broad passages for the orchestra alone. The second part, after the cadenza, introduces the folk element and a strong suggestion of peasant dance.

Yet Szymanowski’s natural tendency toward rapturous lyricism is never far from view. Striking too is his fondness for the extreme range of orchestral sound, from the highest to the lowest.

It should be added that there is nonetheless at times still a certain lushness in the deployment of the strings here and there are lively, melodic passages in the first part. Here too, the orchestral scoring is masterful. The music reached its apotheosis in the ebullient, closing section. The artists received a standing ovation.

The highlight of the evening, however, was the second half of the concert, a brilliant account of Franz Schubert’s magnificent Symphony No. 9, the “Great”—indeed this may have been the most rewarding performance of this incomparable work that I have yet heard in a concert hall. The extraordinaryAndanteintroduction to the first movement is followed by the enchanting, often uncannily Mendelssohnian Allegro—it evokes especially the “Italian” Symphony. There is an intensity of emotion here that often both recalls the mature music of Ludwig van Beethoven—the composer’s idol—whoseethosis a strong presence throughout the work, but also forecasts the expressive Romanticism of Robert Schumann or Johannes Brahms. The movement built to a thrilling conclusion.

The slow movement also seems to remarkably and brilliantly ventriloquize Beethoven for much of its length while the ensuing, cheerful Scherzo has some premonitory moments, even as its Trio section is the epitome of classicism. And, despite its exuberant triumphalism, the entrancing finale is not without its mysterious depths. The artists earned much deserved, enthusiastic applause.

I look forward to the return of these exquisite musicians to a local stage.

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