The
Cleveland Orchestra III:
at Carnegie Hall, New York City, 07.10.2006 (BH)
Messiaen:
Un sourire (1989)
Mozart:
Mentre ti lascio, o figlia, K. 513 (1787)
Mozart:
Per questa bella mano, K. 612 (1791)
Mozart:
Rivolgete a lui lo sguardo, K. 584 (1789)
Bruckner:
Symphony No. 5 in B-flat Major (1875-78)
The Cleveland
Orchestra
Franz
Welser-Möst,
Conductor
Thomas
Quasthoff, Bass-baritone
Maximilian
Dimoff, Contrabass obbligato
In
a memorable ending to their three-concert stand,
Franz
Welser-Möst
and the Cleveland Orchestra left no doubt that their chemistry
is now at the level most of us had hoped it would be when
he was hired. If the first couple of years left
some listeners scratching their heads (i.e., Szell and
Dohnányi admirers),
the orchestra still sounded splendid. And there
was no doubt that Welser-Möst
was working very, very hard, but now and then the results
did not seem to “gel” in the way that the best pairings
of an orchestra with a conductor seem to do.
This
surprising Austrian has the understated podium technique
of Pierre Boulez (if not his high profile), and certainly
not the histrionics of Leonard Bernstein. To some
listeners this may feel like a lack of engagement with
the music. I find him modest almost to the point
of self-effacement, with a style that favors discreet
movement over athletic maneuvers, although he can swagger
with the best when he chooses. At the end of the
evening, despite a thundering ovation after one of the
finest Bruckner performances I have ever heard, he walked
to the podium, bowed slightly and put his hand over his
heart. He also is very selective about giving encores,
and none appeared on these three programs. But this
served to highlight his often-superb programming, and
the menu on this last evening was pretty sublime.
Messiaen
wrote Un Sourire (A Smile) with Mozart in
mind, for the 200th anniversary in 1991 of
his death. In the score the composer writes, “In
spite of his sorrows, suffering, hunger, cold, and the
incomprehension of audiences, and the proximity of death,
Mozart always smiled.” Scored for a large orchestra
with no double basses, it opens with a peaceful frozen
string chord, soon interrupted by a playful outburst from
the winds, brass, and xylophone, and the short (10 minutes)
duration continues back and forth in waves. It is
both static and ecstatic in typical Messiaen mode, resulting
in a peacefulness that seems to know that being at peace
is not necessarily the same as being asleep.
Thankfully
Thomas Quasthoff had recovered from his brief illness,
but from the singing that followed, one would never have
been the wiser. In three rivetingly sung Mozart
arias, he provided a veritable master class in tone production,
phrasing and how to wring maximum drama from these gems.
His final bars of Rivolgete a lui lo sguardo were
almost spat out, but never without refinement – the mark
of a vocalist with a keen sense of how much emotion he
can inject without allowing the musical content to collapse.
Principal bassist Maximilian
Dimoff gave an excellent turn in
Per questa bella mano,
and the rest of the orchestra followed along with alert,
refined playing that never overpowered. If anything,
the orchestra and Mr. Dimoff may have been encouraged
to be a bit too reticent, but this is truly splitting
hairs when one is witnessing a ravishing display of great
singing. The audience knew it, too, and roared enough
approval to cause Quasthoff to return, only to deliver
a superb a capella version of Swing Low, Sweet
Chariot that filled the hall like a burning orb.
Near the end, he reached the highest note of his entire
program, before descending through an entire octave on
the word “home” to arrive at some cavernous note that
only a great bass knows.
Speaking
of caverns, many of those who admire Bruckner’s Fifth
Symphony nevertheless find more “idling time” in its vast
spaces, but on this occasion Welser-Möst demonstrated
that it is one of the composer’s finest, even tautest
creations. With tempi on the slightly swifter side,
torrents of gorgeous sound, immaculately shaded dynamic
levels, and an inner pulse like some kind of glowing heartbeat,
he gave a performance that I don’t expect to be equaled
for a very long time. The opening tread from the
cellos and basses was breathtaking, and it was all uphill
from there, including some amazingly timed silences, and
tempi that breathed as naturally as if one were taking
a long, reflective walk. The beautifully paced first
movement was followed by an Adagio with constant
lightness yet steely adherence to the beat, making the
most of its gentle interplay between its gliding rhythms,
and the Cleveland strings were positively rhapsodic.
The exuberant Scherzo, anchored with some sublime
horn work, bounded about like some light-footed leopard.
And near the end of the final movement, reaching the climax
of the seemingly endless dotted rhythms in its massive
fugue, I will never forget concertmaster William Preucil
learning forward, his heroic posture signaling a request
to the ensemble for one more big surge before the great
journey reached its end. And that is exactly what
happened, as if the group received a sudden infusion enabling
it to course through the fugue to the final plateau with
renewed energy. As the orchestra turned Bruckner’s
final harmonic corner, the brass chorale raining down
with their colleagues in rock-solid form, I could feel
my eyes watering and thought, It really doesn’t get
any better than this.
Bruce Hodges
