Hearing Pierre Boulez conduct the Cleveland Orchestra over the last two weeks reminds you of how great the Cleveland Orchestra can be when conducted by an artist of Boulez's caliber. The concerts heard over the last two weeks will be taken on the Orchestra's tour to New York City with Boulez conducting the Orchestra in Carnegie Hall. After the mixed reviews from the last trip the Orchestra had in New York, sending Boulez appears to be a wise move.

This week's installment brought Gustav Mahler's Adagio from Symphony No. 10 and Richard Wagner's Parsifal, Act II. Boulez conducted the orchestra in a manner that appeared effortless and the audible result was seamless continuous music.

The Parsifal Act II was a warm up for Boulez, who will be conducting a complete staged version of Parsifal this summer at the Bayreuth Festival in Germany. Thomas Moser as Parsifal and Michelle De Young? as Kundry also performed brilliantly along with a cast of other singers and the Women's Voices of the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus. I wanted to shout Act lll suggesting an encore, but I knew that if I wanted to hear that I would have to go to Germany. Hey, Cleveland Orchestra - how about a full concert performance of Parsifal with Pierre Boulez conducting?

I left the concert thinking about the old tag line the orchestra used to use in radio publicity, "Come hear what the world is talking about". The last two weeks of concerts were what the world was talking about, it is a shame we get to hear that orchestra so seldom these days.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Brian Schriefer briancpa@msn.com

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