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SYMPHONY REVIEW
London Philharmonic Orchestra
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Nuance and Taste
By Alexander Kahn
The last couple of weeks have been bad ones for several of the world's leading music directors. It all seems to have started on March 1 when James Levine fell on-stage at a Boston Symphony concert and injured his right shoulder. Several days later, Christoph von Dohnanyi cancelled a series of concerts with the New York Philharmonic, and then Kurt Masur had heart palpitations in Dublin and cancelled part of his American tour with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
The bad news for these conductors has been good news for several others, who have been tapped to take their places. Masur's replacement for Sunday's London Philharmonic concert at Davies Symphony Hall was Roberto Minczuk, a young Brazilian conductor who has just taken over the Calgary Philharmonic and the Orquestra Sinfônica Brasileira in Rio de Janeiro. Minczuk led the orchestra admirably, though cautiously, in a program featuring the Khachaturian Violin Concerto and Mahler's First Symphony.
This was the first visit of the London Philharmonic to Davies since 1984, and the orchestra is in excellent shape. Masur, who has been the orchestra's music director since 2000, has softened and rounded the group's sound. Throughout the concert the orchestra impressed not through its volume but through its sensitive ability to deliver true pianissimos when called for by the score. Balance, however, is a bit muddled: Melodic lines were often overwhelmed by accompaniment figures and supporting harmonies.
The soloist in the Khachaturian was Sergey Khachatryan, a young Armenian soloist who won First Prize in the 2000 Sibelius Competition. Khachatryan's affinity for Khachaturian — a composer born in Georgia to Armenian parents — was evident throughout. Khachatryan exhibited an extraordinary emotional depth through subtle use of rubato and tempo modification that felt spontaneous and fresh. The highlight of his performance was the second movement, in which both orchestra and violinist were attentive to every subtlety of this hauntingly beautiful music. Khachatryan's rendition of the third movement left no doubt as to his technical prowess, although his intonation was not perfect. Mahler's First Symphony requires a high degree of virtuosity from the conductor, with its near-constant barrage of changes of tempo and expression. Minczuk gave a convincing reading, though he seemed to err on the side of caution, keeping his tempo changes as regulated and orderly as possible and his conducting technique clear and minimal. Similarly, the orchestra played on the cautious side with a clean tone throughout, largely avoiding the portamenti and extended bowing techniques one has come to expect during Mahler performances. Highlights of the performance included a beautiful (and in-tune) solo by principal bassist Kevin Rundell at the opening of the third movement and bravura playing by the horns throughout.
(Alexander Kahn is a Ph.D. candidate in music history and literature at UC Berkeley, where his research is focused on the Hollywood émigrés. He is also the assistant conductor of the Oakland Civic and the UC Berkeley symphony orchestras. )
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Sergey Khachatryan
Roberto Minczuk
