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Cleveland Orchestra @ Severance Hall 2/12, 2/19 Maybe everyone gets tired reading how great the Cleveland Orchestra is, but dang! it's good. In the past two weeks the orchestra has shifted to meet the requests of two very different guest conductors and soloists. The resulting concerts, each unique, each beautiful, made the heart sing and a snow-splattered highway trip worthwhile. On February 12, Pinchas Steinberg, authoritatively conducting from memory, kept freshness, fire, and passion in Tchaikovsky's oft-programmed Symphony No. 4. (Anyone else hear fragments from "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" in the last movement?). Soloist Nikolaj Znaider brought an intelligent appreciation of Brahms' Violin Concerto in a controlled, precise presentation. The evening's short piece, Barber's Overture to The School for Scandal, evoked sharply posited musical surprises and welcome humor. The next week (Feb. 19), a smaller audience (blame weather?) welcomed conductor Kirill Petrenko.

Petrenko looked like a magician as he conjured notes from the responsive orchestra. (Perhaps because he often conducts operas, he used dramatic gestures, often telegraphing what came next with body language.) Gil Shaham, soloist in the Stravinsky's Violin Concerto in D major, shared this trait of musical physicality, almost stalking the conductor at times as he crept closer and closer, fiddling gorgeously all the way. Shaham, who also interacted with individual orchestra members, turned the concerto into a thrilling intimate chamber music piece. This concert opened with the dramatic whirls and agitated fury (to symbolize a level in Dante's Hell) in Tchaikovsky's Francesca da Rimini. The work, from an extremely unhappy period in the composer's life, seemed a metaphor for what may have been his own hell; if so, a very unpleasant place to be. The concert closed with an early symphony by Dvorak (Symphony No. 7) that, while satisfying in itself (with its bows to Brahms), hinted at the beauties of Rusalka, the opera the mature Dvorak would create some 16 years later.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Laura Kennelly lkennellyATgmail.com

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