Don Rosenberg: Welser-Möst tries it again, twice, after concerto stops orchestra in its tracks

".....the performance wasn't an outright disaster, though it also wasn't very good"

Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 26, 2007

Donald Rosenberg
Plain Dealer Music Critic

Anyone who has ever played an instrument or sung knows the uncomfortable feeling that creeps in when things don't quite go as the composer planned.

Listeners aren't always aware of these discrepancies, but the Cleveland Orchestra's audience Thursday at Severance Hall was abuzz at intermission about the two interruptions during the last movement of Alban Berg's Chamber Concerto for Piano, Violin and 13 Wind Instruments.

The piece was moving along when everything suddenly collapsed and music director Franz Welser-Möst uttered, "Sorry." He took the ensemble back a bunch of bars and tried again, to no better effect.

"You see how difficult this is," the conductor said to the audience. "It worked this morning."

Finally, Welser-Möst got his meters straight, and the music proceeded to its inevitable, touching end. One suspects the weekend's remaining performances will go more smoothly.

Berg's score deserves the attention. It is a masterpiece of construction and emotional content, albeit one of the most intricate works in the repertoire. The composer flirts with 12-tone techniques as he incorporates hidden codes and the musical names of his close Viennese colleagues Schoenberg and Webern into the fabric.

The opening theme and variations introduce the primary motives and develop them. The second movement is a palindrome that also serves as an impassioned memorial to Schoenberg's first wife, Mathilde. Material from the first and second movements are combined in the finale, whose tricky textures and rhythms -- the cause of Thursday's distress -- are major challenges.

Despite the discomfort, the performance wasn't an outright disaster, though it also wasn't very good. Mitsuko Uchida's forceful, alert pianism and concertmaster William Preucil's silken violin solos gave vibrant voice to Berg's profusion of ideas even when the interplay of solo instruments and fine winds failed to achieve coherence or urgency. Welser-Möst's helpful comments before the performance about the work's "meaning" often didn't transfer to the music-making itself.

After the vague harmonies and complexities of Berg, Brahms' Symphony No. 2 seemed like an old friend encountered on a warm spring day. This is the brightest of the composer's four symphonies, full of sweetness, eloquence and energy, with only a few clouds hovering.

Welser-Möst connected vibrantly with the first movement's lyrical activity and syncopated figures, and he joined the players in a noble reading of the slow movement, which had superb horn, bassoon, oboe and flute contributions. At such moments, the orchestra's distinguished Brahms tradition could be richly discerned.

But the performance began to lose focus in the third movement, which was short of charm and pointed articulation. The finale's mounting excitement wasn't achieved, its activity sounding generic and the trombone lines too cautiously gauged.

The program repeats at 8 tonight and 3 p.m. Sunday.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: drosenberg@plaind.com, 216-999-4269

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