CONSIDERED OPINION OF THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA PERFORMANCE OF 5/8/08

Anatoly Lyadov: Kikimora, Op. 63. Antonín Dvorák: Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104. Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade, Op. 35 (Symphonic Suite after The Thousand-and-One Nights). (Desmond Hoebig, vc.; Hans Graf, cond.)

If, as Woody Allen once said, eighty percent of success is showing up, then this week's Cleveland Orchestra concerts have a considerable head-start on the last pair of subscription weeks. At least as of Thursday evening, illness had neither curtailed nor cancelled the appearance of the planned soloist. And the program remained just what the Orchestra's original season schedule booklet said it would be.

It's a curious coincidence, then, that this most reliable of recent Orchestra concerts should open with the music of Anatoly Lyadov—a musician who was known for being undependable and even downright indolent. In his day, he was famous less for the things he finished than for those he didn't: a ballet for Sergei Diaghilev, for example, that was eventually reassigned to a promising youngster. Had Lyadov been more industrious, Igor Stravinsky would never have written The Firebird.

Lyadov is represented on this weekend's programs by Kikimora, a musical portrait of an irritable domestic spirit from Russian folklore. Guest conductor Hans Graf led a disappointingly tepid version of the work. The opening Adagio suffered from a general lack of tension, and the remainder of the piece evinced little of the malevolent energy of the best performances.

Graf provided livelier leadership accompanying the Dvorák Cello Concerto. But though the result was more engaging than Graf's Kikimora, it too was fundamentally unsatisfying. The playing of the Orchestra's own Desmond Hoebig in this concerto is pretty much the opposite of, say, the fervent recorded performances of Mstislav Rostropovich. Hoebig's Dvorák tends to be confined within somewhat narrow emotional parameters. And that's fine. But even if you restrict the music's emotional leaps, if you base your interpretation on its continuity rather than its contrasts, you still need to find a compelling logic underlying that continuity. Too often, this reading seemed to lack that kind of coherence. It seemed as if we were just moving arbitrarily from one attractive bit of music to another. The result was in no way unpleasant to listen to, but it entertained the ear more than it engaged either the spirit or the mind.

Graf was a bit more effective in Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade. From the suite's beginning, Graf's handling of textures lacked subtlety—not a good omen in a piece whose raison d'être is its orchestration. But the loud, often brash playing worked well enough in the fourth movement, which packed an impressive wallop.

In the end, this weekend's concerts might appeal more to those who find the programming attractive than to listeners concerned with niceties of interpretation. Those last-minute programs of the previous two weeks had moments well worth remembering. Thursday's concert offered fewer substantial rewards. Music can be a volatile and elusive art in which reliability isn't necessarily all it's cracked up to be.

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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