CONSIDERED OPINION OF THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA CONCERT OF 5/24/07

Alban Berg: Chamber Concerto for Piano, Violin, and Thirteen Wind Instruments, Op. 9. Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73. (Mitsuko Uchida, p.; William Preucil, v.; Franz Welser-Möst, cond.)

We are accustomed, by now, to intentionally crafted interruptions in the middle of musical compositions. A musical storm breaks into the frolicking of peasants in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6. Ringing phones punctuate “Pennsylvania 6-5000”—a tune recorded four decades before automated cellular networks began their assault on live concerts. And, five minutes into “The Ninth Wave,” remembered voices repeatedly urge Kate Bush to “Wake up.” But the score of Alban Berg’s Chamber Concerto nowhere instructs that the conductor should halt the proceedings somewhere in the neighborhood of five hundred fifty bars into the piece, explain to the audience that the music is very difficult, mutter a few words about how things went much more smoothly at the morning rehearsal, and restart the passage.

No, that was no clever postmodern gesture at Thursday’s Cleveland Orchestra concert. Rather, it was an ordinary, old-fashioned screw-up—and not even the only one of its kind in the evening’s performance. And the oddest thing about the mishap? I think the audience rather liked it.

It's a tough nut to crack, the Berg—the sort of music that normally provokes a good deal of grousing from the less adventurous portion of the Severance Hall audience. Franz Welser‑Möst did his best to preempt the usual grumbles with some well-gauged prefatory remarks on the piece. But for those of us who admire the Chamber Concerto, there was plenty to criticize in this performance—even before things went irretrievably awry.

Mitsuko Uchida’s piano playing in the first movement’s second and third variations was just plain overbearing, for example. Concertmaster William Preucil’s performance in the Adagio, by contrast, sounded utterly anemic.

Thursday’s version of the Brahms Second Symphony at least proceeded without interruption, and Welser-Möst brought some interesting ideas to the piece. Given time—or perhaps even absent the distraction of a pre-intermission disaster—his ideas might make for a good performance. I enjoyed his bracing conducting at the conclusion of the first movement exposition and the way he delineated the textures of the same movement’s development section. But there were passages, particularly in the finale, that seemed altogether shapeless—Welser-Möst’s treatment of the movement’s second theme, for example. All too often, it seemed as if the musicians hadn’t yet learned to navigate the Allegro con spirito at the exhilarating clip set by the conductor.

No, this was as weirdly ill-fated a concert as I’ve heard at Severance within recent memory. So why did people respond comparatively warmly? Probably it was the obvious evidence of human fallibility: the sense of artists working at the limit of their abilities and not quite meeting the challenge. And, after all, an interestingly flawed concert is preferable to one that’s tidy but dull. As Vladimir Horowitz was known to observe: “Perfection itself is imperfection.”

Jerome Crossley for WCLV 104/9.

Considered Opinions is WCLV's program that reviews performances by Cleveland-area music ensembles. Commentator Jerome Crossley offers an informed and witty perspective on performances by groups that include the Cleveland Orchestra, Opera Cleveland, and Red {an orchestra}. Considered Opinions typically airs at 9.45 a.m., 12.20 p.m., and 5.20 p.m. the Friday following a Cleveland Orchestra concert, and it repeats at 9.45 a.m. on Saturday. Other air-times depend on the schedule of the ensembles reviewed.

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