NSO goes to the movies at Wolf Trap

More and more orchestras have added live music accompanying film screenings to the lighter side of their repertory in the last fifteen years. The National Symphony Orchestra gives a much-needed estival twist to this trend by hosting such performances during their summer residency at Wolf Trap. On Wednesday night, another capacity crowd filled the Filene Center and its lawn for the latest in the series, a screening of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1, in spite of the humidity and occasional spritz of rain.

Such performances do not generally merit comment at Washington Classical Review, but the Ionarts children have always enjoyed attending them - other parents looking for an easy way to introduce young people to the sounds of a live orchestra may find likewise. Miss Ionarts, now in her college years, delighted in seeing a number of children attending in Harry Potter costumes. Released in 2010, this installment of the Harry Potter film series was a bit too frightening for Miss Ionarts back then, and there were still a couple jump scares that had their intended effect even now.

Alexandre Desplat composed the score, making use of themes first created for the series by John Williams. With Desplat's more pedestrian music, it is not exactly a score-driven cinematic experience like the Lord of the Rings or Star Wars films. Guest conductor Constantine Kitsopoulos, aided by the metronomic click track projected on the podium, lined things up just fine with the orchestra, but there were few genuine musical frissons to be experienced. Principal cellist David Hardy stood out for his eloquent solos in the closing act of the movie, for sad scenes I will not spoil, but most of the audience's cheers were sparked by memorable lines or actions from the characters on screen, rather than by the orchestra seated beneath it on stage.

Emil de Cou returns to conduct the NSO in Elmer Bernstein's classic score - complete with ondes Martenot (!) - for the screening of Ghostbusters 8 p.m. this Friday. wolftrap.org

Briefly Noted: Noseda's cycle of Walker sinfonias

George Walker, Five Sinfonias, National Symphony Orchestra, Gianandrea Noseda (released on September 29, 2023) NSO0007D | 65'17"

Gianandrea Noseda had planned to lead a complete cycle of Beethoven symphonies to mark the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth. The twist was that the NSO would perform all nine symphonies in just three weeks, beginning in late May of 2020, a plan wiped out by the coronavirus pandemic. Fate intervened further with the murder of George Floyd that month, igniting a national reaction that led the NSO and other classical music institutions into self-reflection about representative programming. The eventual cycle, led by Noseda from 2022 to 2023, was a pairing of Beethoven with symphonies by African-American composers George Walker and William Grant Still.

One of the benefits was this complete cycle of the five sinfonias of George Walker, all recorded live in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall under Noseda's fastidious baton. Remarkably, for all the effort and time involved in bringing this composite cycle to completion, this single disc clocks in at just over an hour. None of the Walker Sinfonias is longer than about fifteen minutes, and the most slender is the one the NSO itself commissioned in 2012, when the esteemed American composer was 90 years old, Sinfonia No. 4. Walker's subtitle, “Strands,” refers to the way he interwove two spiritual melodies (“There is a Balm in Gilead” and “Roll, Jordan, Roll”) almost imperceptibly into this one-movement piece, which the NSO took on its 2023 visit to Carnegie Hall. Sinfonia No. 2 stands out among the Walker symphonies for its originality, especially the short second movement (“Lamentoso e quasi senza misura”) where a mournful flute solo is accompanied by enigmatic clusters and melodic snippets from the cellos and even guitar.

Sinfonia No. 3 has a percussion-laden third movement bustling with rhythmic activity, reminscent at times of Stravinsky or Shostakovich. However, like Sinfonia No. 1 and portions of most of these pieces, a disappointing sameness and arid quality prevail. Sinfonia No. 5 ("Visions"), premiered after Walker's death in 2018, has the most overt programmatic elements of the five. While Walker was working on the piece, in 2015, a white supremacist shot and killed nine black parishioners at Mother Emanuel Church in South Carolina, after which the composer added words to the symphony, spoken by a soprano, a tenor, two baritones and a bass. The composer's last symphonic statement thus took up the ongoing struggle for racial equality in the United States, made more explicit by a video by Frank Schramm shown at the premiere, including ocean scenes and photographs documenting the slave trade in Charleston.


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NSO accompanies screening of "E.T."

Among the summer offerings of the National Symphony Orchestra at Wolf Trap was a screening of the classic film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial on Friday night. It was a beautiful evening for it, with a cool breeze that could have been a little stronger to make up for the heat of the receding day at the Filene Center. It was heartening in a way to see that the crowd for this supposedly popular offering, in both the house and on the lawn, was smaller than the straight-classical program the NSO had played here last weekend.

The NSO's longtime associate conductor, Emil de Cou, continued his leadership of most NSO events at Wolf Trap for the screening. The Steven Spielberg film, released in 1982, was much funnier than I had remembered, and my son and I both enjoyed watching it again. John Williams, who has provided so much of the soundtrack of American cinematic lives for the last fifty years, may not be remembered principally for this film. In fact, there is not much to the score except some memorable moments created with papery piccolo solos, tingling celesta and harp, and quirky, almost mechanical loops.

That is with the noteworthy exception of the two flying bicycle scenes, the two places in the film where the NSO could really open up and soar. The effect with live orchestra was an exponential increase of the gooseflesh effect of Williams's full-orchestra treatment of one of his distinctive melodies. If some people who do not normally attend orchestra concerts experienced that feeling, this aspect of the NSO's "popular outreach" effort will have been worth it.

Runnicles leads French music with the NSO

Many thanks to Robert R. Reilly for this review from the Kennedy Center.

On Thursday evening, at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, visiting British conductor Donald Runnicles led the National Symphony Orchestra and the University of Maryland Concert Choir in performances of the music of Claude Debussy and Maurice Duruflé. It was a delectable French-flavored evening before a very sparse audience.

The first half of the concert was dedicated to Debussy. It may be helpful to recall its genesis. Erik Satie wrote, “I explained to Debussy that a Frenchman had to free himself from the Wagnerian adventure, which wasn’t the answer to our national aspirations. I also pointed out that I was in no way anti-Wagnerian, but that we should have a music of our own — if possible, without any sauerkraut.” Ingeniously, Satie suggested that the way out for French music was French painting. Why not look to “the means that Claude Monet, Cézanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, and others had made known? Why could we not transpose these means into music?” It is a measure of French musical genius that it was able to do so, as so brilliantly exemplified in the works of Debussy.

The concert began with four of Debussy’s piano Préludes, arranged for orchestra by English composer Colin Matthews. Matthews is no stranger to this kind of thing as he, along with his brother David, assisted Deryck Cooke in Cooke’s revised performing version of Gustav Mahler’s 10th Symphony. While I am an avid fan of David Matthews’ music, I cannot say the same for what little of Colin Matthews’ music I have heard. Regardless, his Debussy orchestrations reveal a very fine ear for color and are so well done that they sound completely natural to the music. But does it still sound like Debussy? Whether you think so or not makes the music nonetheless enjoyable, particularly in the NSO’s subtle, mellow, finely articulated performances.

In Debussy’s Three Nocturnes, his inspiration may not have been so much French painting, as it was the American paintings of James McNeill Whistler. In any case, Runnicles' finely shaded, diaphanous traversal of them also earned the same adjectives applied to the performances of the Préludes. Debussy’s Nuages (Clouds) floated by in an appropriately delicious, dreamy way, capturing “the slow motion of the clouds,” just as Fêtes was suitably bracing and festive. Orchestra and chorus were quite excellent in elucidating a broad range of dynamic range in Sirènes, from the lapping of the waves, to the first gentle and then strengthening wordless song of the Sirens.

Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem from 1947 originated in a suite of organ pieces based on plainsong from the Mass for the Dead. When he received a commission from Durand Publishers, he expanded them into the Requiem. The Requiem is listed as Op. 9, which would normally indicate an early work. In his lifetime, however, the meticulous Duruflé was to publish only a dozen works, mostly for organ. The Requiem is the chef d’oeuvre of his maturity. Add to plainchant the sensuous harmonies of Debussy and Ravel, which Duruflé had learned so well, and you have a mesmerizing combination, simultaneously modern and archaic. As Duruflé wrote, “In general, I have attempted to penetrate to the essence of Gregorian style and have tried to reconcile, as far as possible, the very flexible Gregorian rhythms as established by the Benedictines of Solesmes with the exigencies of modern notation.”

The Requiem opens very dreamily. Gentle orchestral undulations underlie the smoothly flowing plainchant of the Introit. Runnicles took this rather too briskly. The cushion of sound was invitingly there, but not the leisure to lie upon it. If we are dying, what’s the rush? I know Duruflé makes death relatively attractive but this displayed too much alacrity. There was certainly nothing imploring about the Kyrie, but Runnicles effectively conveyed its sense of celebration as in mercy received. In the Offertorium, one glimpses the inferno from which the soul has been saved. Dissonances depict the “punishments of hell,” but even the request for deliverance from them is almost triumphant. The vigor with which Runnicles approached this scene guaranteed an effective rescue from the “lion’s mouth.” Baritone Christian Bowers was fine at the Hostias et preces tibi, but not notably expressive.

The Sanctus slowly builds with cushioned strings to a triple-forte climax at “Hosanna in excelsis,” then subsides peacefully back into the rippling moto perpetuo with which it began. This was very well done. The Pie Jesu is a very poignant, gentle supplication, the point of repose at the heart of the work. It was delivered with both strength and nuance by mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, with a fine supporting contribution from cellist David Hardy. The Agnus Dei restores a sense of motion and confidence that the “requiem sempiternam” has been granted. Lux Aeterna evokes what the eternal rest might be like, and In Paradisum represents the trip there, what Duruflé called “the ultimate answer of Faith to all the questions, by the flight of the soul to Paradise.”

In the first part of the Requiem’s performance, I was given to wonder if Runnicles simply considered it another exquisitely beautiful piece of music, much like the Debussy, because of what I detected as the missing ardency of faith, the core of what Duruflé was trying to express. That impression, along with my reservations concerning the pace that he was taking early on, completely vanished from the Lux Aeterna onwards.

Anyone with a taste for secular or religious Impressionism, should enjoy this French feast.

This program repeats tonight and tomorrow.

At WCR: Noseda takes the helm

Charles T. Downey, Noseda, NSO bring out the steel and serenity of Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet”
Washington Classical Review, November 4

PREVIOUSLY:
Charles T. Downey, Noseda Brings the Casella (Ionarts, November 13, 2015)

---, Noseda Pumps up the Volume with the NSO (Ionarts, February 12, 2011)

Prokofiev’s 'Romeo and Juliet'

Conductor Gianandrea Noseda
Many thanks to Robert R. Reilly for this review from the Kennedy Center.

On Thursday evening, November 3, 2016, the National Symphony Orchestra essayed Sergei Prokofiev’s great ballet Romeo and Juliet at the Kennedy Center. It did so under the direction of Italian conductor Gianandrea Noseda, who will assume his full duties as replacement for NSO music director Christoph Eschenbach in the fall of 2017.

On the evening’s evidence, this is good news for Washington, D.C. Noseda galvanized the NSO to give a thoroughly compelling performance of this masterpiece. It was a concert performance of the (almost) complete ballet music, but I am tempted to say that, even without dancers, we saw a ballet nevertheless. It is astonishing to realize that Prokofiev’s score was turned down by the Bolshoi in 1935 as “unsuitable for dancing.” Since it contains waltzes, minuets, gavottes, and tarantellas, what’s not to dance to? I have difficulty remaining still in my seat when I listen to it. The music demands movement. Noseda did not resist the impulse. He conducts with more than his baton; his body is his baton. He moved expressively with the music in a balletic way that was neither gratuitous nor histrionic (though his few deep knee bends startled). He clearly communicated. The NSO responded with glorious playing. I think that Romeo and Juliet was not the only love story transpiring on stage.

Noseda’s strong emotional commitment did not compromise orchestral discipline (which is what I sometimes thought was occasionally the problem with the conducting of Mstislav Rostropovich, to whose memory the performance was dedicated). To extend the ballet analogy, the players were on their toes the entire time. They needed to be as Prokofiev’s score has frequent, often abrupt changes of rhythm and pace. To break with the ballet analogy, they turned on a dime. It was a breathtaking level of execution (though there were a few minor flubs, which is to be expected in an opening night performance of a score this demanding, but not once in the many opening or closing cues). The discipline of the playing added to the drama and never subverted the warmth. In other words, technical excellence was never the point.

Thus one was able to appreciate the broad range of expression Noseda and the NSO players captured in the mercurial character of this music. The big moments, such as Tybalt and Mercutio’s fight, Romeo’s reaction to Mercutio’s death (great staccato chords hammered home), the killing of Tybalt, and Romeo’s exile by the Prince, were shockingly visceral and harrowing in their impact. The gentle and gloriously lyrical love music, including the “parting is such sweet sorrow” moment at the end of Act I, the Act II marriage music, and the Act III scene in Juliet’s chamber, were delivered with delicacy and refinement. The music shimmered in all the right places. The Juliet funeral music at the opening of Act IV was a lesson in how searingly sorrowful pianissimo, tremolo string playing can be when done as well as the NSO violins did it.

One hardly knows where to begin in complementing the other members and sections of the orchestra. I never knew how good the tuba music was in depicting Juliet’s growing stupor under the influence of the sleeping potion until I heard it tonight. Kudos to Stephen Dumaine. Perhaps that’s unfair, because I would have to single out so many other individuals. The flute is Juliet’s instrument, and Aaron Goldman played it so well in, so to speak, singing her song. But what of the rest of the brass, the clarinets, the oboes, the bassoons, the saxophone – to say nothing of the outstanding timpani? They were all generally excellent. The undergirding provided by the cellos and double basses was formidable, as were the violas when given their chance to sing.

Anyone who has the faintest appreciation for one of the greatest ballet scores of the 20th century, or who may be curious as to what Maestro Noseda is bringing to our fair city, should not tarry seeing one of the remaining performances.

Romeo and Juliet repeat on Friday and Saturday nights, November 4 and 5. I want to go again.

At WCR: NSO, Benedetti

Charles T. Downey, Eschenbach, NSO present a contrasted program of Marsalis, Tchaikovsky
Washington Classical Review, October 28

PREVIOUSLY:
Charles T. Downey, Yuja Wang's Polished Performance with the NSO (Ionarts, December 8, 2012)

---, Nicola Benedetti In Over Her Head (Ionarts, February 5, 2009)

NSO Program 2: Shakespeare at the Symphony (2/3)

Charles T. Downey, Valčuha shows a deft touch with NSO
Washington Classical Review, October 7

NSO Program 1: Shakespeare at the Symphony

Conductor Edward Gardner (photo by Benjamin Ealovega)

The National Symphony Orchestra had its season opening gala last weekend. The season really began with a program led by British conductor Edward Gardner, heard at the second performance on Friday night. The concept, Shakespeare at the Symphony, was a perfect excuse to bring together two excellent pieces never before presented by the NSO, Edward Elgar's Falstaff and the suite from William Walton's film score for Laurence Olivier's Henry V.

As Gardner announced before Falstaff he thinks audiences need help following the dramatic action in Elgar's delightful Shakespearean tone poem. To that end, we were invited to follow the story through descriptions on a supertitle screen, and it did enhance the music's effect. Gardner is climbing the ladder of principal guest positions, having served in that capacity with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and now the Bergen Philharmonic. He was able to bring the music to life with decisive ideas and a clear, contained set of gestures. He put the second violin section back with the first violins, moving the violas to the outer right edge of the orchestra. This allowed them to be heard much more clearly, a good idea since both Elgar and Walton gave them important melodies. The sotto voce sound of the string in the robbery scene (as well as of the violas and cellos in the scene in Shallow's orchard) and the hilarious bassoon solos were high points. Concertmaster Nurit Bar-Josef had a wistful, nostalgic sound as Falstaff dreamed of himself as a slender youth.

Other Reviews: Seth Arenstein, NSO opens season with Shakespeare in words and music (Washington Classical Review, September 30) Anne Midgette, NSO starts season with a new face in Shakespeare (Washington Post, September 29)

Elgar's score ends with the death of Falstaff, and the return of Prince Hal's melody indicates that his last thought is of his young friend who has spurned him. Walton's suite begins almost with the mournful passacaglia for Falstaff's death. Top-notch solo playing from English horn and flute stood out, as did more exquisite all-string sound. Before the final movement of the suite, actor Matthew Rauch gave a stirring recitation of Henry V's St. Crispin's Day speech. It led quite naturally to the "Agincourt Song" that concludes the suite, into which Walton incorporated the "Agincourt Carol," an English folk song from the 15th century.

Actors William Vaughan and Audrey Bertaux were less memorable in the balcony scene from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, staged with him moving among the orchestra musicians and her in the chorister seating above. This led just as aptly into the final selection, Tchaikovsky's fantasy-overture on Romeo and Juliet, which received a performance that really made me like it. It is true that in this piece, Tchaikovsky does not give in to his usual tendency to go on too long, but still Gardner accomplished the near-impossible by making me enthusiastic about a Tchaikovsky symphonic work. The battle scene was well marshaled — all fast, crisp, and aligned — and Gardner never let the potentially soupy bits wallow or drag in the least.

This concert repeats this evening at 8 p.m. in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

On Washington Classical Review: NSO Gala

Charles T. Downey, NSO gala raises $1 million and fetes opening of African-American Museum
Washington Classical Review, September 26

Why Do We Love 'La Bohème' So Much?

D'Ana Lombard (Mimi) and Yongzhao Yu (Rodolfo) in La Bohème, Act I, Wolf Trap Opera, August 2016
(photo by Scott Suchman for Wolf Trap Opera)
Henry Mürger was a working-class writer born in Paris, the son of a tailor and a shop-worker. In his youth Mürger was so poor that his group of friends, who included the photographer Nadar, called themselves the Buveurs d'Eau (Water Drinkers) because they could not afford to buy a drink when they went out. Most of us have been there.

Mürger wrote about the desperate poverty he and his friends endured while trying to pursue their artistic interests in a book called Scènes de la vie de bohème. It was first read as a self-published serial, a feuilleton included as a literary supplement in another publication. Mürger eventually gathered the stories into a book published in 1851, when he was not yet 30 years old. For Mürger it was the combination of poverty and artistic drive that made the life of a bohemian, as he defined it, "any man who enters into the arts without any other means of existence except the art itself." The book made Mürger's name, and he went on to have some success as a poet and playwright.

In the 1890s, Giacomo Puccini and his librettists, Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, adapted the story into an opera, La Bohème. It premiered in 1896 in Turin, followed just one year later by an alternate version composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo. This opera has become intensely popular with audiences. As proof, we have reviewed a never-ending stream of productions over the years, including from Washington National Opera (in 2007 and 2014), the Castleton Festival in 2011, and Santa Fe Opera (2011 and 2007). Wolf Trap Opera turned to it again this summer, having taken this long to recuperate after Jens vivisected both the work and a performance there in 2004. It returned to the stage of the Filene Center on Friday night in a staging that was not so successful.

La Bohème may not be for everyone, but it was one of the first operas that made a major impression on me as a teenager, so I have a weak spot for it to this day. The opera keeps to a few scenes from the book, focusing on the characters of Rodolfo (who represents Mürger himself, the struggling poet), Schaunard (the musician Alexandre Schanne), Marcello (the painter François Tabar), and Colline (the philosopher Jean Wallon), whose coat of many pockets is always heavy with books. The Café Momus, where the second act is set, was a favorite haunt for writers on the Rue des Prêtres-Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, near the Louvre. Rodolfo's garret is on the Rue de la Tour-d'Auvergne, near Montmartre, the same street where Mürger lived. It is an intensely nostalgic work, and it makes just about everyone who hears it think fondly of their student days when they did not have two dimes to rub together after the rent was paid.

Other Reviews: Grace Jean, Strong ‘La Bohème’ at Wolf Trap makes a good case for more opera there (Washington Post, August 8)

The awkward body-mike amplification at the outdoor Filene Center made it difficult to judge the quality of the voices in this production. Soprano D’Ana Lombard, who was Rosina in Ghosts of Versailles last summer, had the range for Mimi, if not the floating vocal quality that makes her seem most innocent. Reginald Smith, Jr., who was an exceptionally strong Count in last summer's Le Nozze di Figaro, was equally powerful here as Marcello, with the same kinds of comic gifts that lightened his presence on stage. The Rodolfo of tenor Yongzhao Yu, new to my ears, seemed strong, but it is impossible to know how the voice would fill a hall when not amplified. Summer Hassan had the sass for Musetta, if not necessarily the laser-focused vocal goods. Shea Owens, who stepped into the role of Junius in The Rape of Lucretia in June at only a week's notice, and Timothy Bruno had capable turns as Schaunard and Colline, respectively.

Paul Curran updated the setting to the end of World War I. This made one question why Mimi was bothering with lighting her candle in the hallway, as well as why young men were still in Paris writing plays and painting canvases. (Even worse, it's been done before.) Erhard Rom designed one large set piece, Rodolfo's garret, that was somewhat cumbersome to roll on and off. A few small backdrop objects suggested the other scenes, as well as several large video screens (designed by S. Katy Tucker) that set the tone of Paris in the winter. The National Symphony Orchestra was again placed at the rear of the stage, with the same problems in amplification noticed last month. In particular, Grant Gershon had almost no way to control the rushing of the singers from behind the set, judging by the number of bad misalignments between the cast and the orchestra, not to mention the balance problems. A truly great production of this opera has eluded Ionarts up to this point, but the best one so far indicates that you need a straightforward production, not too heavy on the sentimentality, and a first-rate conductor who can actually conduct the singers.

Quirky, Failed 'Firebird' with NSO

Firebird, directed by Janni Younge (photo by Luke Younge, Lucid Pictures)
The so-called "heat dome" that has settled over most of the country made the prospect of an outdoor concert on Saturday night not so pleasant. Fans and programs fluttered furiously at the Filene Center, but few breezes came to cool the air at Wolf Trap for the latest concert by the National Symphony Orchestra. Featuring the much-anticipated return of Handspring Puppet Company, last in Washington for a slightly weird Midsummer Night's Dream with the Bristol Old Vic and for Warhorse before that, this concert was a disappointment for many reasons, the main one being the poorly amplified sound.

This adaptation of Stravinsky's Firebird, on the second half, required a large space at the front of the stage. As a result, in both halves the NSO was crammed into the extreme rear of the stage. For most NSO concerts in this admittedly dreadful acoustic, inside the theater one hears mostly natural sound. In this arrangement the only sound that really came out to the house was through the speakers, and it was like listening to an ancient transistor radio in the garage. Neither conductor Cristian Măcelaru nor the musicians, even if they had monitors to hear the sound produced by the speakers, could calibrate balances in the same way they do with live sound. In the first movement of Prokofiev's first symphony ("Classical"), that lightly tripping second theme in the violins was so delicate as to be almost inaudible, while the bassoon theme that accompanied it, more closely miked, was far more prominent. The finale, with its panoply of moving parts, was reduced to mush by amplification best suited to loud, not particularly nuanced types of music. The suite from Ravel's Ma mère l'Oye, although beautifully played (I would guess), fared no better.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, “Firebird” at Wolf Trap proves long on statement, short on puppets (Washington Post, July 25) Peter Dobrin, At the Mann Center, a Firebird that soars (Philadelphia Inquirer, July 21)

Abstract music can be adapted to a ballet for which it was not created, as choreographer Mark Morris has shown again and again. When the music was created specifically to tell a different story, the challenges are much greater. This was the problem faced by this new South African Firebird, directed by Janni Younge and with choreography by Jay Pather. It could have succeeded in the way that the South African Magic Flute by Isango Ensemble, seen in 2014 at the Shakespeare Theater, did. Unfortunately, rather than gently pull Stravinsky and Fokine's story into a new shape, the director substituted a completely different one, not really having anything to do with the contours of Stravinsky's music.

The previous times we have seen Handspring creations, the troupe has augmented a story already fully developed by others. Here, the burden of narrating fell entirely to them, and it was overburdened and ineffective. Mostly, the director was trying to tell too many stories simultaneously, with dancing, not always seeming related to the music, competing with the puppets, mostly in the last ten minutes or so, and busy animations (created by Michael Clark). The video was projected on an object hanging over the stage, which looked something like a dirigible but turned out to be the largest puppet of them all, and a rather unwieldy one at that. Ballet is in many ways the total art form (pace Richard Wagner), with a visual element merged with an auditory one. My eyes focused almost entirely on the dancers, ignoring the video projection, so much of the story, reportedly about the history of post-Apartheid South Africa, passed me by. The NSO played well, through the veil of amplification, giving a sense of mystery to the additions to the score by Daniel Eppel.

This article has been edited to make a necessary correction.

Second Opinion: Bruckner and Mahler at the NSO

Many thanks to Robert R. Reilly for this review from the Kennedy Center.

I can now lay claim to being a Christoph Eschenbach Bruckner veteran. This is because I have heard his prior NSO performances of Bruckner’s Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Symphonies, and now I have heard his Fourth. In these pages (or on this site), I praised the performances of the Eighth and Ninth, and gave the Seventh a mixed review. I shall engage in almost unadulterated praise of the Fourth, which I heard on Friday evening, in the second of its three performances.

But I must speak of the first item on Friday’s itinerary – Gustav Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder. It is not at all odd to pair Mahler and Bruckner together on a program. At least Mahler would not have thought so. One of the things I most admire in him is his having had all the scores of Bruckner’s symphonies printed in Vienna, at his personal expense. I take that as the tribute of one great artist to another.

I am a neophyte when it comes to the Rückert-Lieder. I have never heard them performed live and know them only from the famous John Barbirolli/Janet Baker recording. In any case, they are gems set with marvelous delicacy in Mahler’s inimitable orchestral language. They were sung by contralto Nathalie Stutzmann, who seems to be an Eschenbach favorite. In past NSO appearances, I have heard her in the Wesendonck Lieder by Richard Wagner, as orchestrated by Hans Werner Henze, and in Dvořák's Stabat Mater. She has a rich, caramel voice, which she deploys was a good deal of nuance and expressivity. But, as I noted in the past, she occasionally has trouble projecting. This seemed to be the case on Friday evening, though it was hard to tell whether this was her fault or the orchestra’s. At times, it seemed as if Eschenbach had turned up the volume behind her.

In the first song, the orchestra appeared to be playing altogether too loudly. It seemed to settle down in the second. However, in another instance, when Stutzmann was singing piano, she got swamped by an oboe playing forte. I can’t imagine this having happened when the NSO first performed the Rückert-Lieder because Jessye Norman was the soloist. She would’ve blown that oboe all the way back into the dressing room. However, I don’t want to make too much of this because Stutzmann was very expressive and particularly moving in the last two songs, with especially exquisite shading on the phrase “ich sei gestorben.” The orchestra also did its part in the last song by relaying the music’s connection to the Adagietto of the Fifth Symphony, on which Mahler was apparently working at the same time. Eschenbach distilled its diaphanous beauty.

With the Fourth Symphony, Bruckner’s greatness comes clearly into view. All the baby fat, galumphing, and ungainliness are gone (well, nearly, depending on which of the four versions you’re listening to, which in this evening’s case was the 1878/80 edition, edited by Leopold Nowak). One does not normally associate the term diaphanous with Bruckner, but Eschenbach and the NSO delivered a performance of this work that nearly earned this appellation. The orchestra softly whispered the opening string tremolo before the horn calls summoned the main theme. This was the first exhibition of extremely fine pianissimo playing, at one edge of the tremendous range of expression that the orchestra had on display, which was just as exhilarating as the pounding fortississimos of the magnificent climaxes.

Other Reviews: Robert Battey, Eschenbach takes the NSO back to one of his favorites, Bruckner (Washington Post, June 10) Charles T. Downey, NSO Ends Season with Bruckner 4, Mahler (Ionarts, June 10) Eschenbach's Bruckner: no. 8 (2014) | no. 7 (2012) no. 9 (2012) | no. 6 (2010)

And in between, one could hear everything. This was a performance of tremendous transparency, never gained at the expense of a slackening tempo. As finely molded as this music was with every delicious lilt in it expressed, Eschenbach kept everything within a fairly tight grip. This is not to say that he rushed the fences; he terraced up to the climaxes very nicely, in a well-shaded and well-paced manner. This was nowhere more evident than in the way in which he built the string tremolos in the Finale to its majestic culmination. The one movement in which one might say that Eschenbach did rush the fences was the Scherzo, which he took at a blistering pace. The fact that the NSO took the breakneck tempi fully in stride provided a great deal of excitement. This was an orchestra at the top of its game in the Scherzo and throughout.

With the Symphony performed in this way, we experience the exultation of one of the mountain peaks Bruckner ascended. From its top, we can almost see the Matterhorn of the Eighth Symphony above us. I cannot imagine anyone not being thrilled with having been given this view. Anyone who hasn’t should rush for tickets for Saturday night. In fact, the only thing wrong with Friday evening was the pitiably small audience, which nonetheless proved capable of coughing above its weight class during the Rückert-Lieder. Bruckner proved to be a giant cough drop.

I close by applauding the Playbill “Notes on the Program,” written by Dr. Richard E. Rodda. A lot of space is often wasted in program notes by musicologists who try to give a technical blow-by-blow of what is happening in the music – which leaves most readers in the state of incomprehension. Dr. Rodda’s notes, on the other hand, go to the most important thing – the spirit of the music, which he eloquently captures. More of this, please.

This concert repeats this evening, in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

NSO Ends Season with Bruckner 4, Mahler

Bruckner, Symphony No. 4 (1886 version, ed. L. Nowak), London Symphony Orchestra, B. Haitink (LSO Live, 2011) Mahler, Rückert-Lieder, V. Urmana, Vienna Philharmonic, P. Boulez (Deutsche Grammophon, 2005)

Christoph Eschenbach extended his unofficial Bruckner cycle with the National Symphony Orchestra last night, with a rousing, buzzer-beating rendition of the fourth symphony, dubbed by the composer the "Romantic" symphony. He did so by following the formula he used with Bruckner's seventh symphony in 2012, when he paired Bruckner with Nathalie Stutzmann singing Wagner's Wesendonck-Lieder. The French contralto, who last visited as the conductor of Handel's Messiah last year, gave a musically sensitive but often covered performance of Mahler's sublime Rückert-Lieder.

It had been over a year since our last Bruckner, when we heard the eighth symphony from the BSO, and the withdrawal symptoms were in full force. The NSO last played the fourth symphony, supposedly the most popular of the composer's works, in 2005, when Roger Norrington conducted Bruckner's original 1874 version. Bruckner rarely let his works alone, making obsessive revisions, taking cuts, sometimes then restoring them, and even replacing entire movements. For those keeping score, Eschenbach chose the 1878/1880 version (ed. Leopold Nowak) of the fourth symphony, the one with the joyful, programmatic Jagd-Scherzo but rejecting the colorful Volksfest finale, which he substituted in 1878, for the first in a series of revisions of the original finale. In addition to some cuts in the slow movement (which were a mistake in my opinion), the thing Bruckner was most trying to get right in all those revisions was the finale, with which he was never quite satisfied. Hearing the 1880 revision of the finale, one can understand why, as it meanders and drags through some less pleasing turns.

The piece opens with an exposed horn solo, played with assured subtlety by the NSO's principal horn player Abel Pereira, a motif that focuses on perfect fifths in the home key (B-flat to E-flat, E-flat to A-flat) with an alluring turn toward the minor subdominant (A-flat, C-flat, E-flat) that is such an important part of the thrilling crescendo at the conclusion of the last movement. Bruckner calls for so much tremolo in the string section that one feared for the players' wrists, especially when Eschenbach allowed the brass, who were magnificent, to overpower the other sections so much. At that rare moment in the first movement where the second violins get the melody, Eschenbach did little to guide the rest of the orchestra to create a space for them to sound.

Other Reviews: Robert Battey, Eschenbach takes the NSO back to one of his favorites, Bruckner (Washington Post, June 10) Eschenbach's Bruckner: no. 8 (2014) | no. 7 (2012) no. 9 (2012) | no. 6 (2010)

Eschenbach's tempi were just slightly faster than those chosen by Bernard Haitink for his 2011 recording with the London Symphony Orchestra, but with an impatience that unsettled the whole performance. This was most evident in the inner movements, as the Andante seemed to vary a lot in tempo (and not just in the ways Bruckner indicated), but with beautifully soft dynamics, especially in the introspective passages where the melody is in the viola section. There were some intonation issues in the woodwind sections, possibly due to balance problems in Eschenbach's interpretation, possibly because principal oboist Nicholas Stovall sat out.

The "hunting" Scherzo is exciting without having to be pushed as fast as Eschenbach pushed it, and by the end the initially rash tempo was mollified. The flute solo in the trio, which Bruckner said was "a dance melody which is played to the hunters during their repast," had a lovely, breathy sound, and the brass section, as throughout the symphony, was imperious from trumpets down to the tuba. Hard as it was to believe, an audience member was audibly snoring at the start of the fourth movement, in spite of all that loud brass in the scherzo. Perhaps Celibidache's expansive reading of this symphony with the Munich Philharmonic has spoiled me, with its luxurious renditions of the second and fourth movements, but Eschenbach's interpretation just seemed rushed (the fourth movement clocked in at 22 minutes), especially in that gigantic crescendo that ends the work.

Stutzmann's singing in the Rückert-Lieder was inspiring, as long as Mahler's orchestration was delicate enough that Eschenbach could keep the orchestra at pp, so as not to obliterate her tentative sound. If Stutzmann had to strain at all, her intonation, never quite on the head in the best of circumstances, suffered even more. In the third and fourth songs, where Mahler uses a larger orchestration, one just needs a larger voice than what Stutzmann could summon, and her relative lack of breath support meant that "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen," performed last in a slight re-shuffling of the order of the songs, felt too rushed to disconnect from the world.

This concert repeats tonight and Saturday, in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

Salonen, Out of Nowhere

E.-P. Salonen, Violin Concerto / Nyx, L. Josefowicz, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, E.-P. Salonen (Deutsche Grammophon, 2012)

Attentive readers will recall that my last pick for the Top 25 concerts of this season was the National Symphony Orchestra's program slated for the first weekend of June. Along with symphonies by Haydn and Schumann, Leila Josefowicz was going to give the world premiere of a new violin concerto by Sean Shepherd. About five months ago it became apparent that Shepherd was not going to finish this commission in time, and the new concerto was postponed, replaced by Esa-Pekka Salonen's relatively new violin concerto, as noted in my June concert picks. Josefowicz reportedly offered to play a few options from her repertory instead of the Shepherd piece, and Christoph Eschenbach and the NSO wisely chose Salonen's violin concerto, one of the best new pieces of recent years, heard at the Friday performance. A little bird tells me that the Shepherd concerto, when finally completed, will get an NSO performance, not next season obviously but soon thereafter.

At some point along the way Salonen's violin concerto has lost its subtitle, "Out of Nowhere," referring to the way that the solo part begins in media res. The constant stream of notes, accompanied by celesta, glockenspiel, and vibraphone, gives the impression of a pixie flitting about spraying fairy dust everywhere, with Josefowicz's harmonic notes somehow imitating the metallic sounds around her. A marvelous part for contrabass clarinet reinforces the entrance of the bass instruments on long notes (marked "stagger breath"), sounding like a tidal surge but given the first movement's title ("Mirage") may refer to the visual waves produced by extreme heat. The first inner movement ("Pulse I") is framed by sections of artificial harmonics in the solo part, showcasing Josefowicz's impeccable E string technique, through which she produced a perfectly tuned sound that could cut through any texture but never be harsh.

In both the pulse movements, playful rhythmic patterns became the focus, with the timpani in "Pulse I" pounding on the beat and then, through a sleight of hand, off the beat, for example. Wooden percussion and brass provided the impulse in "Pulse II," eliciting more wooden, hollow sounds from Josefowicz's tremolos. Salonen uses the orchestra for subtle, coloristic purposes for much of the piece until, at the end of the third movement, the ensemble goes on a wild rampage, with the solo shrieking along in crazy glissandi. ("Something very Californian about this," Salonen noted, laconically, in his composer's note.) The composer's affecting farewell to his former band, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is heard in the fourth movement ("Adieu"), with the most tender, introspective music of the concerto, including a rising scalar motif, almost like a jet slowly taking off from LAX. Salonen, for his part that "this is not a specific farewell to anything in particular," although later he admitted that "it is not a coincidence that the last movement is called 'Adieu'."

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, A maverick soloist offers a classic new work (Washington Post, June 3)

Eschenbach, who was laser-focused while conducting the Salonen, returned to his over-expressive gestural mode in both of the more familiar symphonies. Schumann's fourth symphony had a welcome return, not played by the NSO since 2003. (The program notes, for some reason, were on the topic of the second symphony.) The differentiation of sound through attention to balances seemed to show careful reflection, but Eschenbach could not seem to settle on one tempo, shifting the speed in different sections of the first movement, for example. Schumann's heavier re-orchestration, in the revised version of the symphony played here, gives a lugubrious quality to the slow introductions of first and last movements. The composer still made missteps, like giving the slow movement's main theme to the solo cello and oboe together, a combination that is not easy to keep in tune, although Nurit Bar-Josef was in excellent form in the solo triplets of the B section. The famous scherzo was the high point, set at just the right tempo and beautifully shaped, with some oozing rubato in the trio section, while the warlike finale, with its martial dotted rhythms, was heroic.

Sadly, Haydn's Symphony No. 104, the last of the series of twelve for the London visit, where he was when he composed it, seemed like an afterthought at the start of the concert. Eschenbach took the greatest number of liberties, often seeming to work against the score's best interests, stretching out the slow introduction of the first movement and then pushing the fast section to the edge, not seeming to have convinced the musicians of what he wanted to do. The second movement felt over-mannered, every articulation exaggerated but without the necessary precision in attacks or in the ends of sounds. The trio of the third movement had the best results, with a relaxed tempo and approach to dynamics producing an elegant sound, while the finale was spirited but not really witty.

This concert repeats this evening, in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

James MacMillan Leads the NSO

J. MacMillan, The Sacrifice, C. Purves, L. Milne, Welsh National Opera, A. Negus (Chandos, 2010) Vaughan Williams, Complete Symphonies, London Philharmonic, New Philharmonia, A. Boult (Warner, 2012)

This month is all about the Wagner in Washington, but the area's two top orchestras are both offering excellent programs, too. Last night Scottish composer James MacMillan made his debut at the helm of the National Symphony Orchestra. As he did when he conducted the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 2008, MacMillan brought some of his own music, which the NSO last played in 2013, when they presented the local premiere of his third piano concerto.

Welsh National Opera gave the 2007 world premiere of MacMillan's second opera, The Sacrifice. The libretto by Michael Symmons Roberts, derived from the Mabinogion, the Welsh national folk epic, tells the story of a woman torn away from her love to be given in a politically advantageous marriage. MacMillan extracted Three Interludes from the opera to make a rather pleasing symphonic work, played here for the first time by the NSO. The large orchestration creates the impression of a tribal world, with violent twists provided by blaring low brass and plenty of percussion. The first movement ("The Parting") opens with a wild clamor of sound, after which a menacing melody rises through the orchestra. The second movement ("Passacaglia") presents the eponymous bass pattern in the pizzicato double basses, where it stays, eventually doubled by low brass. Heavy use of high woodwinds often gives a screeching effect, perhaps to evoke fifes or other folk instruments. The third movement is faster and martial, the low brass and reeds thumping away on a march pattern, ending in a Shostakovich-like finale accompanying the murder of the couple's young son.

Along with Scotland and Wales, the British program included pieces by two English composers, beginning with Elgar's poignant cello concerto. Alisa Weilerstein has played this concerto, so associated with Jacqueline du Pré, in recent years with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and also the NSO, in 2013. Cellist Alban Gerhardt brought an intense, moody approach to the solo part, rising up forcefully on the A string to bring in the full orchestra in the first movement, and with a big pizzicato sound in the transition to the faster section. He played fast and furious in the Allegro molto conclusion to the second movement, with MacMillan carving out enough sonic space and subtlety of color for his soloist's sometimes small sound. Gerhardt's strengths lay in a tender and introspective interpretation, rather than broad strokes, to which this concerto is nicely suited, making the third movement's delicate softness the high point rather than the heady sweep of the finale.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, The NSO goes to Britain (Washington Post, May 13)

More performances of the Vaughan Williams symphonies are generally welcome, and MacMillan led the NSO's first performance of the composer's fourth symphony since Leonard Slatkin conducted it in 1999. (The last Vaughan Williams symphony played by the NSO was the 'London' Symphony in 2013.) The fourth is founded on a dissonance, a minor 2nd that opens the first movement with a bracing clash, part of a chromatic motif (F, E, G-flat, F) reportedly drawn from Beethoven's ninth symphony and disturbingly similar to the BACH name motif. MacMillan relished the general loudness of the piece, allowing the gnarled mass of lines to clot upon itself in the first movement, but also coaxed lush string playing and cooing brass accompaniment in the second theme.

The harmonic palette of the second movement sounded not unlike that used by MacMillan in his interludes from The Sacrifice, with a beautiful concluding flute solo over the movement's dying embers. The chromatic theme (and a second quartal theme) runs throughout all four movements, showing the influence of Beethoven as Vaughan Williams transformed it into a dancing scherzo theme in the third movement and a triumphant call in the fugato finale. MacMillan again marshaled the NSO forces impressively in the slightly maniacal fourth movement, with a hint of Shostakovich-style banality, as the chromatic theme was obsessively repeated and altered through many diminutions and augmentations, seething with tension.

This concert repeats tonight and tomorrow, in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

Litton's 'Year 1905' and Yet Another Tchaikovsky

Tchaikovsky / Glazunov, Violin Concertos, V. Gluzman, Bergen Philharmonic, A. Litton (BIS, 2008)

Charles T. Downey, Andrew Litton, conducting NSO, does justice to Russian program (Washington Post, May 6)

Andrew Litton returns every other year to conduct the National Symphony Orchestra, where he once assisted Mstislav Rostropovich. This time it was with a Russian program, one part showy treacle and two parts epic bombast, heard last night in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

The last time the NSO played Shostakovich’s 11th symphony (“The Year 1905”), in 2005, it was one of the high-water marks of the tenure of Leonard Slatkin. It is a terrifying ride, a fist-clenching musical description of the Jan. 9, 1905, massacre carried out by the czar’s troops. In an unannounced lecture by Litton, accompanied by musical examples played by the orchestra, Litton illustrated the Russian songs quoted by Shostakovich... [Continue reading]

National Symphony Orchestra
With Andrew Litton (conductor) and Vadim Gluzman (violin)
Kennedy Center Concert Hall

SEE ALSO:
Michael Cooper, The Conductor Andrew Litton, Finding a Different Tempo (New York Times, January 19, 2016)

jfl, Gloom, Doom, and Despair: Slatkin Leads the NSO in Glorious DSCH-11 (Ionarts, June 3, 2005)

NSO Semi-Pops

Weill, Die Sieben Todsünden (inter alia), L. Lenya

Charles T. Downey, From the NSO, a pops concert that fizzled
Washington Post, April 29

Pops concerts can be a lot of fun, but it is best to market them clearly as such. Thursday night’s concert by the National Symphony Orchestra was a pops concert in all but name, provoking a few grumbles at intermission and afterward about programming that was decidedly lightweight. It fell to American conductor James Gaffigan, last at the podium of the NSO in 2012, to conduct this somewhat underwhelming evening, and he did so capably but without distinction.

Ravel’s “La Valse” was the climax, a work that seemed overplayed and indeed was last heard from the NSO in 2014... [Continue reading]

National Symphony Orchestra
With Storm Large, Hudson Shad
Kennedy Center Concert House

SEE ALSO:
jfl, Ionarts at Large: Two Concertos for the Price of One!

Charles T. Downey, BSO and Lise de la Salle (Ionarts, February 18, 2012)

---, Gaffigan Keeps It Nice (Ionarts, January 20, 2012)

Michael Lodico, Weill and Ravel at the Castleton Festival (Ionarts, July 18, 2011)

Nikolaj Znaider Lifts a Baton

Mahler, Symphony No. 1, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, R. Kubelik (Audite, 2000) Mozart, Piano Concertos 20-27, M. Bilson, English Baroque Soloists, J. E. Gardiner (Archiv, 1989)

Christoph Eschenbach has used some of his remaining time at the helm of the National Symphony Orchestra to give some aspiring conductors a shot. The results with Nathalie Stutzmann were inspiring; with violinist Nikolaj Znaider, who appeared as soloist with the NSO last week (while I was in Greece), not as much. Most conductors get their start playing an instrument, and some continue to do both, so there is nothing all that surprising about another violinist taking up the baton. A Mozart piano concerto and Mahler's first symphony showed competence in conducting -- "knowing how the music goes," as Znaider told Anne Midgette in the Washington Post -- but little beyond that.

British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor has dazzled as a recitalist, but his take on the solo part in Mozart's 27th piano concerto left something to be desired. Most of the problems came from an unsteady tempo, as Grosvenor rushed through many of the passages in sixteenth notes, requiring readjustments from the orchestra to cover his unpredictability. The difference was quite striking when he played Mozart's cadenzas, where without any ensemble issues to worry about, Grosvenor shone as he has in the recital format. Znaider was not much help, settling on quite different pacing for the orchestral sections of the slow movement, for example, and allowing some of the delicate woodwind lines to be swallowed up in orchestral sound. Grosvenor's right hand dominated the solo part, while most of the details of the left hand went unheard, and his very fast tempo choice in the finale pushed that movement from being somewhat avuncular to a sound that was harried and, more often than not, a little mechanical.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Soloist-turned-conductor impresses with NSO’s Mahler (Washington Post, April 8) ---, “You can make good music almost anywhere.” (Washington Post, March 29) Robert Battey, NSO wraps a fine new piece in competent but uninspiring chestnuts (Washington Post, April 1)

It is easy to get the loud, exciting parts of Mahler's first symphony right, and when Znaider gave the brass its head in this work's explosive sections, he predictably propelled many people in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall to their feet. As Jens Laurson has put it, however, performances and recordings that "delight those who are looking for a show in what can admittedly be seen as Mahler’s showiest symphony" are in many ways missing the point. The other parts of the "Titan" are to be treasured in a rendition that is a little more deeply thought through, and here the forest murmurs of the first movement were a little drab. The second movement felt awfully fast, so that the later outbursts had to be really fast. The comic funeral march of the third movement got off to a good start in the double-bass solo, but too much of the movement, which has so many weird, idiosyncratic moments, had a disappointing sameness, even those bumptious folk-band interruptions. The luscious bits of the finale, too, were foursquare, a little plain, which left only the bombast to be admired.

This program repeats just once, on Saturday evening, April 9.

Lugansky and Vänskä Devastating in Brahms

Beethoven, Symphonies, Minnesota Orchestra, O. Vänskä (BIS, 2009)

If we take this week's "trifecta of Russian piano virtuosos" in the classic, hippodromic sense of the word, it would be Denis Matsuev for Place and Daniil Trifonov for Show. The Win would go to the last to reach my ears, Nikolai Lugansky's devastating performance of the Brahms first piano concerto with Osmo Vänskä at the podium of the National Symphony Orchestra, heard on Saturday night in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

The first movement of this concerto can be a little overbearing, and it was so in this performance, with the timpani overwhelming much of the first section of the orchestral exposition. A dark gloom settled over the orchestra in the second theme, winding down into the trumpets and timpani as Lugansky made his first wandering, subdued entrance. He and Vänskä were always in rhythmic unity, aiming together for a slow burn of this rather massive, shambling piece. At the recapitulation, preceded by rumbling octaves in the piano, Lugansky was implacable in tone, after which the piece subsided into murky depths in that long duet of the bass side of the keyboard and horn.

The climax of the piece is the slow movement, perhaps the most beautiful one Brahms ever composed, a portrait of Clara Schumann, smoldering with emotion that is bottled up, not allowed full expression except introspectively. A characteristic moment happens early in the Adagio (see the score below), in measures 12 to 13 of the orchestral introduction, where a powerful V chord looks lined up to resolve strongly to I, only to be turned away as V7 is suspended over a D pedal tone, which then has to pass through IV in second inversion before reaching its destination. This was exactly how Lugansky and the orchestra played it, more a glowing ember than a blazing fire. Lugansky tamed the finale's challenges with steely technical power, fast but not too much so, with only some of the piano's out-of-tune treble strings to cause complaint.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Vanska makes a muted NSO return with Brahms, but shines in Beethoven (Washington Post, March 18)

At the start of Beethoven's sixth symphony, which concluded the evening, Vänskä struck an impatient tone in what should be a genial first movement. His gestures, seeming to grate against the more restrained tempo, unsettled the ensemble unity in the first movement, especially in the sections dominated by sextuplets. The second movement, by contrast, had a serene, lilting quality, in which the careful layering of sounds, some more important than others, created a rushing or burbling effect. The woodwind players were flawless in rendering the magical moment of the three bird calls -- Nachtigall, Wachtel, Kukuk (nightingale, quail, and cuckoo) -- at the movement's end. The third movement felt fast but was delightfully light and soft, except that Vänskä allowed the string sound to engulf the woodwind melody at times in the trio. Celli and timpani rumbled in alternation effectively in the storm scene, followed by a sweet, gently paced finale, where Vänskä's restraint at the start paid off at the climax of the movement.