United States Beethoven, Janáček: Cleveland Orchestra / Franz Welser-Möst (conductor). Mandel Live performance Corridor at Severance Music Middle, Cleveland, 13.3.2025. (MSJ)
Beethoven – Symphony No.5 in C minor, Op.67; Leonore Overture No.3, Op.72b
Janáček – From the Home of the Useless Suite (arr. František Jílek)
Composers’ reputations aren’t settled till a century or extra after their deaths, typically longer. It’s gratifying to see the sluggish, regular construct of Czech composer Leoš Janáček’s popularity, only a few years shy of the one hundredth anniversary of his demise. He was a sluggish starter, writing typical music in his youth and steadily discovering an authentic and distinctive voice. However as soon as he discovered it, he wrote music that seems like nobody else’s. It was a deep pleasure to come across on this live performance music from his opera From the Home of the Useless, impressed by the Dostoevsky novel of the identical identify.
The opera was the composer’s final main work, and he left it completed in shorthand however not fleshed-out. Varied editions have made the work performable, and in 1979 Czech conductor František Jílek assembled sections of the music to make this vivid suite. The primary motion is the extra often heard prelude to the opera, the second motion is music that accompanies a play staged by gulag inmates in Act II of the opera, and the third motion samples the unique ending of the opera. The music irresistibly mixes menace, marvel, despair and defiance for a bunch of tales set in a Siberian jail camp. This efficiency savored Janáček’s exceptional palette of colours, starting from scorching trills within the strings to darkly imposing brass chords, with the music’s stressed shifts unified by a extremely centered lyrical sweep formed by music director Franz Welser-Möst. It’s only the second time the orchestra has performed this suite, however allow us to hope it isn’t the final: it proves how rewarding deep dives into Janáček’s lesser-known works are, and definitely offered the musical spotlight of the night.
The Janáček was the one surviving component of the initially deliberate program after the withdrawal of soprano Asmik Grigorian. The orchestra has introduced that the unique program, which included Richard Strauss’s 4 Final Songs, might be rescheduled. As a substitute of substituting one other singer, Welser-Möst reprogrammed the remainder of the live performance, stating, ‘This program change has given us an opportunity to say one thing essential about our world at present. As individuals combat for freedom in all places, these items inform that very same human story’. The efficiency of Beethoven’s third Leonore Overture stepped as much as that assertion, emphasizing the pressing drive of the music. The musicians leaned into the phrases, combining with Welser-Möst’s brisk tempo to encapsulate your complete story of Fidelio, the opera for which the overture was initially meant, from imprisonment, to loving care, to the promise of aid and the triumph of accomplishing freedom.
Characteristically, Welser-Möst was extra reserved and fewer demonstrative in the identical composer’s Symphony No.5. A seasoned opera conductor, Welser-Möst lets the recognized narratives inform his performances of operatic music, thus giving us the compelling second half of this live performance. For the symphony, although, he was reluctant to permit any kind of extra-musical notions to intrude on the music. Whereas that anti-romantic stance is actually defensible from a musicological perspective, what’s extra debatable is the conductor’s insistence on minimal inflection, totally refusing to introduce something to the efficiency that isn’t explicitly on the web page of Beethoven’s rating.
This insistence on literalism was a trademark piece of rhetoric from the Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini (although, the truth is, cautious examine of his recordings proves that he did nothing of the kind). On the floor, former Cleveland music director George Szell appeared to endorse this literalism, although he really did an unlimited quantity of rating tweaking, microscopically shortening observe values with the intention to let buried particulars come out in thickly-scored passages. Welser-Möst, like Christoph von Dohnányi earlier than him, is much extra literal in Beethoven than both of these previous masters. That literalism extends to exactly following the observe values of Beethoven’s rating whether or not it helps the work come to life or not. The method appears logical, because it takes Beethoven at his phrase. However is it actually the composer’s phrase? Beethoven was not Mahler, writing minute particulars in his scores. Beethoven’s scores are fairly plainly written, although the testimony of his pals and colleagues tells us that the composer launched rather more shaping of element and variation of tempo in rehearsal and performances, whether or not as a pianist, quartet member or conductor. This music wants shaping. The Leonore No.3 had extra of this kind of inflection and got here extra to life due to it.
Twelve years in the past, I reviewed Welser-Möst’s Beethoven’s Fifth, and I loved it then for its high-energy sweep. On this event, the power burned much less brightly, and the tempos weren’t as irresistibly swift. With out the sheer momentum, we had been left with an under-inflected rendition that didn’t really feel prefer it had a lot to say in regards to the acknowledged mission of ‘saying one thing essential about our world at present’. Beethoven’s Symphony No.5 will all the time work, regardless of how poker-faced the efficiency. However in a combat for freedom, full pressure is required, not imprecise lyricism.
An ideal snapshot second of what didn’t work on this efficiency was the primary entrance of the horns within the Scherzo. Although not marked with an accent, the horns are fortissimo once they enter. Welser-Möst as an alternative had the horns attenuate their assault, making it virtually lyrical. As a substitute of a powerful ba-ba-ba-baaaa, we got wa-wa-wa-waaaa. As a substitute of a combat for freedom, it sounded diffident. Likewise, the acrobatic decrease strings of the trio of the Scherzo had been too mushy to make an affect, simply because the strings’ notes had been too sustained to make the primary motion compelling. And with a full complement of strings, wind particulars had been buried all through. The efficiency began to indicate extra presence within the finale as the quantity of brass scoring elevated. Once more, nonetheless, Welser-Möst restrained the orchestra once they needed to roar and held them on a decent leash once they needed to take off within the quick coda.
Those that don’t like rhetoric of their Beethoven may adore it. Myself, I favor Beethoven off the leash.
Mark Sebastian Jordan
Featured Picture: Franz Welser-Möst conducts the Cleveland Orchestra © Extraordinaire Pictures/TCO
