Quick reviews of recent events
Submit your own review or commentary to Events@CoolCleveland.com

Cleveland Orchestra @ Severance Hall 3/12 We expect the Cleveland Orchestra to sound lush. But how can a smaller portion of it sound so rich and full? I don't know the answer, but if it's possible, this orchestra will do it. And so they did, Thursday evening in the Symphony No. 85 in B-flat major ("La Reine") by Franz Joseph Haydn. As conducted by music director, Franz Welser-Möst, the entire piece was vigorous and infectious, especially in the latter part of the second movement and the caprice-like flute solo, engagingly performed by Joshua Smith, followed by the ländler in the menuetto.

Hearing the Schicksalslied (Song of Destiny), Op. 54, by Johannes Brahms was like déjà vu all over again. This is from enjoying the same work on the same stage within a five day time span, but with a different conductor, different orchestra and different chorus. If truth be known, it would be hard to choose between the two performances. Both versions were simply gorgeous, although perhaps this one had a bit more tonal heft than Sunday’s presentation by the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra and chorus, conducted by Jayce Ogren.

Eden by Julian Anderson was a total departure from the first half of the program, being only four years old. It appears to be a construction about opposites and different tunings, played together ‘on purpose’ according to spoken comments by Mr. Welser-Möst. After demonstrating two versions of the same scale, but tuned ¼ tone differently, one can sense how difficult it is to play this way – on purpose. Solos by cellist Desmond Hoebig and Robert Vernon, viola, were eerie, but well done. The general impression is as if one could throw a basketfull of various musical sounds to the ceiling, and because of their different pitch and time value, they would fall down at different rates and speeds, not all landing at the same time, but creating sounds as they fall. Interesting.

After a brief delay (not counting reseating the stage yet again) the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus with tenor soloist Stuart Skelton took the stage for the second large-scale Slavic choral/orchestral work we’ve heard in two months. January gave us Janáček’s Glagolithic Mass; this time it was the Psalmus hungaricus, Op. 13 by Zoltán Kodály. Mr Skelton was here then, too, with his lyrical large voice.

This time he’s King David, as depicted in Psalm 55, alternately sorrowful, irate or frustrated at a breach of trust, leading to war. He and the Chorus (prepared by its director Robert Porco) sing in the susurrating sounds of Hungarian, making it all somehow sound more intense than it might in English. Mr. Welser-Möst was very attentive to Mr. Skelton, as was the orchestra. Several players contributed beautiful solos: violinist Peter Otto, flutist Marisela Sager, harpist Trina Struble, principal horn Richard King, principal trumpet Michael Sachs, principal trombone Massimo La Rosa and organist Joella Jones.

Week after next it’s the first fully-staged opera at Severance Hall in more than thirty years when Mr. Welser-Möst conducts Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, with an international cast. The reduced orchestra will be in the pit beneath the stage for the four performances: March 23, 25, 27 and 29th. Limited seating is still available: telephone 231-1111 or try the website http://www.ClevelandOrchestra.com.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Kelly Ferjutz artswriterATroadrunner.com
(:divend:)