SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

The San Francisco audience turned out in force, filling Davies Hall on a chilly Monday evening to hear Europe’s oldest orchestra play Beethoven. And not just any Beethoven, but two of the most popular works in the composer’s canon: the Piano Concerto No. 5 “Emperor” and the Symphony No. 7. With works this familiar, the challenge for the musicians of Leipzig’s Gewandhaus orchestra is to bring a sense of freshness to the proceedings. Conductor Riccardo Chailly’s answer was to dive into the music with unrestrained gusto. Pianist Louis Lortie elected to focus on elegance. The results got several well-deserved standing ovations.

The Gewandhaus orchestra sounded in fine shape, neither overly orotund nor too spare. The strings went for muscle over a pretty sheen. The woodwinds and trumpets played with an edge of roughness to make their sound a bit more athletic. The horns were considerably more polite, which lent an air of refinement to the moments when their sound was forward. Most impressively, they kept up with Chailly’s breakneck tempos without dropping any apparent notes. So, it should be added, did Lortie.

Perhaps because those two works fill a two-hour program (with encores), Chailly set a quick pace in every movement of each piece. In any event, the rush of music made the proceedings never boring. More importantly, no details got lost.

In the concerto, Lortie avoided any flamboyance and simply created one phrase after another that spun Beethoven’s lines into exciting turns. All the while, Chailly punctuated the orchestra’s phrasing, never letting the momentum flag. For an encore, Lortie returned with the zesty finale of Beethoven’s “Les Adieux” sonata.

Good as that was, the breathless pace Chailly set for the symphony made it something of a thrill ride. Right from the beginning, he created a sense of anticipation in the long introduction and a seamless transition into the exposition. The speed introduced a sense of joy, and the first movement breezed by deftly.

There was no dawdling in the second movement, either. Taken at a true Allegretto, this was no funeral march, as some conductors have it. As the tune moved from one instrument to another, one section to another, the music became like a steadily turning kaleidoscope.

The Scherzo pushed the velocity even further, which made for bracing effects. Even in the trios, Chailly scarcely backed off. This might have been a miscalculation. The first shift intro the trio felt like a refreshing dip. But the second time it felt like the momentum would never let up. Shouldn’t a trio be like catching your breath after a sprint? Anyway, in the final brief foray, the lack of speed differential deflated Beethoven’s little joke about getting lost in yet another trio.

Undaunted, Chailly revved up one of the fastest performances of the Rondo finale I’ve heard. The orchestra was up to it, and aside from the horns sounding a bit too mellifluous in their final fanfares, the excitement level remained high through to the finish.

For an encore, the orchestra finished with a bit more Beethoven, the Prometheus Overture. It put a fitting cap on some exciting music making. 

Harvey Steiman