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SYMPHONY REVIEW
February 23, 2004
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By Janos Gereben
When the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra returns home in a couple of weeks from its current US trip to its hallowed hall in
Amsterdam, it will play works by Shostakovich, Bruckner, Debussy and Mozart. Nothing unusual, to be sure,
but certainly more varied than the Davies Hall program either Sunday — Beethoven's and Tchaikovsky's
fourth symphonies — or Monday night — Mozart's 41st and Brahms' first symphonies.
Why such strict "Best of Classics" programming? The conductor for the tour, Herbert Blomstedt, must have
had a lot to do with it. As San Francisco audiences well know, Blomstedt has always favored the
tried-and-true, and lately, he has pretty much dropped everything else. His near-exclusive focus on this
repertoire has some significant advantages. For example, in case of the Mozart, here's a 77-year-old
conductor, leading the performance of a 216-year-old masterpiece, something he has done frequently since
his Stockholm days in 1954. Just think: a half a century with the Jupiter!
And so it came to pass Monday night, a precise, measured, faithful performance, and played from the
heart, yes, if not from the gut, and that's fine for Mozart — not the only way, but respectable and
quite beautiful. The combination of Blomstedt and the Concertgebouw yields an interesting, appealing
sound. This is no musical melting pot, much less homogenized, but a well-balanced way of playing in which
you can hear each section distinctly, playing together, blending, but not doing a "hundred strings." In
fact, the first and second violin sections (placed in the European stereophonic formation, at either side
of the podium) can be distinguished, but the over-all effect is impeccable.
The first and fourth movements of the Mozart were particularly well-played, with fine contributions from the woodwinds, but in the ear of this beholder, the Andante cantabile — while mellisonant enough — was somewhat short on warmth and intensity. In mid-movement, there was a sense of the music running on autopilot, allowing the listener closer scrutiny of the orchestra. Today's Concertgebouw is a well-mixed organization, in age, gender, even nationality. Where once elderly Dutch men ruled, there are now many women (THREE on double bass!), middle-aged and young musicians, and only about half of the orchestra roster has names obviously from Holland. It's a long way from C major to C minor, and from Mozart to Brahms' First Symphony, a loving tribute to Beethoven (although using a different structure), and a very big work, large in numbers and statements. Conducting without a score again (I cannot remember the last time I saw a score in front of him), Blomstedt shaped the architectural splendor of the opening Allegro, but disappointed slightly at least one listener in a too-straightforward Andante, where more lyricism and wistfulness would have been welcome. Even so, the woodwinds shone again, and concertmaster Vesko Eschkenazy made a splendid impression. The easy-going charm of the Allegretto was tailor-made for Blomstedt, and he absolutely nailed the huge last movement, leading the orchestra in a more intense, inspired and awesome manner than at any other time during the Concertgebouw's two-day residence in Davies Hall.
(Janos Gereben, a regular contributor to www.sfcv.org, is arts editor of the
Post Newspaper Group. His e-mail address is janosg@gmail.com.)
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