“Just Beethoven”: Daniel Barenboim (piano),  Orquestra de la Communitat Valenciana, Zubin Mehta (conductor), Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, Valencia, Spain 01.11.2006 (NP)

 

 

The title of last Wednesday’s concert in Valencia’s Palau de les Arts, “Just Beethoven”, was a deliberate play on words as the Egmont Overture, the Eroica Symphony, and the Emperor Piano Concerto have more than their composer in common: all three of them deal with political topics such as war and victory, justice and freedom.

 

The performance began with an extremely slow Egmont Overture in which the general tempo detracted considerably from the work’s dramatic character.  There were also small but consistent problems with the horns and, generally, the orchestra’s cohesion and sound quality were inferior to that which we have enjoyed in the past. Zubin Mehta also surprised the audience with an unconventional disposition of the strings, as the second violins had changed places with cellos and basses, a factor which may have contributed to the poorer sound.

 

The Emperor Concerto followed and Daniel Barenboim showed all of his famous ability to engage with the audience, even though committing some errors in the virtuoso passages of all three movements: some notes were wrong, some didn’t seem to sound at all despite Barenboim´s pedal-work to unify these errors in the sound mass. The overall effect was to create a diffused atmosphere which seemed a long way away from Beethoven’s intended purity of tone. Even so, Barenboim´s positive attributes outweighed the negative ones; his overall conception of the work was still undoubtedly superb and all the musical elements were ingeniously joined into a single unified entity.

 

The audience applauded enthusiastically, and were rewarded with an encore: Chopin’s Nocturne op. 27 nr. 1. This was wholly wonderful, even sublime! Mr Barenboim’s assured individuality mixed the richness and originality of a quasi- improvisational style with a faithful interpretation of Chopin’s essentially muted timbres; sound planes appeared, disappeared and flew one into the other with an extraordinary dynamic and expressive wealth.

 

The second half of the concert was dedicated to the Eroica Symphony. This interpretation had the passionate and noble character that Beethoven typically gave to his orchestral works and which manifested itself in the expert control of the sound balance, especially in the typical crescendo to a subito piano effects. The first movement´s syncopated chords were precise and the oboe played a a particularly important role in the success of the Marche Funebre with some beautiful solos. The horns created a energic character in the third movement and the Scherzo had a expressive climax in the eighth variation (Poco Andante). On the whole this was an excellent performance, in which the maestro conducted with elegance and precision and the orchestra responded with intense brilliance, wonderful ensemble and elegant balance.

 

 

 

Nieves Pascual