United States Blossom Pageant 2024 [5]: Víkingur Ólafsson (piano), Cleveland Orchestra / Franz Welser-Möst (conductor). Blossom Music Heart, Cuyahoga Falls, 17.8.2024. (MSJ)
R. Schumann – Piano Concerto in A minor, Op.54
Tchaikovsky – Symphony No.5 in D minor, Op.64
The Cleveland Orchestra’s concert events this week have been warmups for an upcoming European tour (particulars right here) that includes Bruckner’s Symphony No.4 and Tchaikovsky’s Fifth, and visitor appearances by pianist Víkingur Ólafsson in Robert Schumann’s A minor concerto. The concert events promise basic Cleveland Orchestra performances: poised and Apollonian.
Ólafsson’s strategy to Schumann right here was passionate but considerate, internal voices of the piano half weighted to make clear what’s going on within the mid-range which Schumann fills with many notes. There’s a hazard of changing into fussy and overly reserved within the means of sorting and clarifying, however Ólafsson didn’t neglect what fuels this ardent concerto: Schumann wrote it for the love of his life, his spouse Clara. Ólafsson by no means misplaced concentrate on the emotional fantasy that animates the music, ruminating in discursive explorations with out ever dropping the primary thread. Cleveland Orchestra music director Franz Welser-Möst was skillful in balancing ahead momentum whereas leaving room for Ólafsson’s delicate discursions.
The gradual motion of the concerto was, sadly, marred by the late arrival of dozens of patrons, who had evidently stayed too lengthy within the parking zone awaiting the top of a torrential rain that delayed the live performance’s begin. I might fairly the efficiency would have paused to seat the latecomers or repeated the gradual motion, nevertheless it soldiered on. After this distraction, Ólafsson was nonetheless capable of pull the main focus again to Schumann’s dreamy world in time to arrange the nice and cozy surge of the finale which he clearly savored. At one level, he even swung round on the bench so he may hearken to the orchestra, and who may blame him – he had the final word seat for listening. Returning to the solo half, Ólafsson displayed some remarkably intricate pedaling to get simply the best sound of resonance and assault going into the exultant closing pages. The efficiency was acquired rapturously. Notable have been orchestral solos from Jeffrey Rathbun (oboe), and Afendi Yusuf (clarinet).
Welser-Möst’s refreshingly Apollonian tackle Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.5 got here after the intermission. A protracted-standing pillar of the classical repertory, the Tchaikovsky is a superb piece that has typically been distorted by indulgent conductors exaggerating the work’s emotional content material. Welser-Möst understands that with content material so clearly emotional, it harms the work whether it is exaggerated. As an alternative of the standard awkward gear-shifting of performances that velocity up and down all through the primary motion, Welser-Möst has bucked custom and gone again to the supply: Tchaikovsky’s rating. What Tchaikovsky wrote exhibits some flexibility of tempo however not the wild shifts which have grow to be conventional. Many begin the piece far underneath the indicated tempos, turning the primary Allegro right into a trudge till they later velocity up wildly. Others overemphasize the emphasis of the primary theme, instantly turning it right into a inflexible march. Welser-Möst made the excellence of a brisk tempo, with out a martial emphasis till the closing pages of the motion the place, for the primary time, he marked the beats fiercely and let his gleaming brass part blaze with full drive. Earlier than that, he had saved the second theme ardent as a substitute of sagging, proving that Tchaikovsky’s symphonic writing is structurally efficient in the event you really play what the composer wrote as a substitute of mugging like a nasty actor.
The second motion can likewise sag if mishandled, however Welser-Möst saved it shifting, not with impatience however with urgency, which makes its emotion very actual. Nathaniel Silberschlag did the opening horn solo with candy tenderness, answered by voluptuous solos from Frank Rosenwein (oboe) and Afendi Yusuf (clarinet). The scherzo introduced a pleasant stability of class from the strings and expression from the woodwinds, together with the anxious bassoon solos from John Clouser.
The finale was taken broadly sufficient for the strings to dig into the primary theme’s battles as a substitute of skating over them. The conductor skillfully managed that difficult pause simply earlier than the coda, the place audiences so typically break into applause prematurely: Welser-Möst gave the cutoff earlier than the pause vaguely, as a substitute of a crisp cutoff, frightening the orchestra to barely path off the large chord. It made it clear, even to individuals who didn’t know the work, that though it was thrilling, it was not but the top. The coda proved triumphant and richly performed, with the best change of tempo on the trumpet and horn fanfares (once more, a rarity). It was the form of efficiency that proved the true greatness of Tchaikovsky’s rating, and all of the extra shifting due to its trustworthy supply.
Europe will quickly savor the sophistication of Cleveland at its formidable finest.
Mark Sebastian Jordan
