CONSIDERED OPINION OF THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA CONCERT OF 4/26/07

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No. 28, K. 200. Richard Sortomme: Rhapsody for Viola and Orchestra. Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5. (Robert Vernon, va.; Franz Welser-Möst, cond.)

From Sinéad O’Connor’s album of big band standards to Rosie O’Donnell’s Another Rosie Christmas: such is the life of a session musician, taking work where work’s to be found. The nearly two-hundred credits of string player Richard Sortomme, listed on the Internet’s All Music Guide, range from the ridiculous to…well, if not quite the sublime, at least the pretty good. Among the discs that I’ve heard, the best include meticulously performed pop albums by James Taylor and Carly Simon, cast recordings of Stephen Sondheim musicals, and Philip Glass' Songs from Liquid Days—minimalist settings of lyrics by Laurie Anderson, Suzanne Vega, David Byrne, and that quintessential New York City singer-songwriter, Paul Simon.

As for a few of the other recordings—let’s just say that Sortomme’s accumulated enough other high-caliber accomplishments on his resumé to atone for the occasional peccadillo. Now he can add a Cleveland Orchestra commission to his CV. Sortomme’s Rhapsody for Viola and Orchestra, written for Orchestra principal Robert Vernon, receives its world premiere at this weekend’s concerts. And there’s no need to let that phrase “world premiere” make you nervous. Sortomme’s Rhapsody is so accessible you have the feeling you’ve heard it all before. Take the opening: you can almost picture the camera panning across lush green fields, finally zooming in on the farmhouse where…well, you can fill in the rest. In short, this often seems generic movie music rather than concert music—an inflated realization of material that, at its root, is quite banal. And while that might not bother you when you’re at the multiplex and engrossed in the latest weepie, it’s much less attractive at center stage.

It didn’t help that the Orchestra sounded a little uncomfortable with Sortomme’s piece on Thursday evening—a problem that might well correct itself before the next two concerts this weekend. Indeed, in the Mozart Symphony No. 28, which preceded the Rhapsody on the program, the interpretation of the first movement sounded as if it were falling into place as the performance went on. But Franz Welser-Möst’s reading of Mozart’s Andante was on an altogether different level, authoritatively navigating a striking array of textures, from vaguely folksy gestures to sparkling cascades of sound.

Welser-Möst’s approach to the Tchaikovsky Fourth, like last year’s fascinating version of the Fifth, shared with that Mozart movement a welcome sense of surprise. Welser Möst’s Tchaikovsky is almost never what you expect. It eschews facile sentiment for something more psychologically penetrating. There was an unexpected modernity to this version of the Fourth—in the creepy, enigmatic tone of some passages, for example, and in its often jagged, abrupt transitions.

Tchaikovsky traditionalists? They might not find Welser-Möst’s strategies to their liking. But, to my mind, this was a fresh, incisive interpretation of this classical warhorse.

And after all, as Paul Simon said—in lyrics as yet untouched by Philip Glass—the world offers “fifty ways to leave your lover.” Surely it can accommodate more than one way to play Tchaikovsky.

Jerome Crossley for WCLV 104/9.

Considered Opinions is WCLV's program that reviews performances by Cleveland-area music ensembles. Commentator Jerome Crossley offers an informed and witty perspective on performances by groups that include the Cleveland Orchestra, Opera Cleveland, and Red {an orchestra}. Considered Opinions typically airs at 9.45 a.m., 12.20 p.m., and 5.20 p.m. the Friday following a Cleveland Orchestra concert, and it repeats at 9.45 a.m. on Saturday. Other air-times depend on the schedule of the ensembles reviewed.

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