CONSIDERED OPINION OF THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA CONCERT OF 4/19/07

Johann Sebastian Bach: Orchestral Suite No. 3, BWV 1068; The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080—Contrapunctus XIX (orch. Luciano Berio). Igor Stravinsky: Movements for Piano and Orchestra. Giuseppe Verdi: Quattro Pezzi Sacri (Four Sacred Pieces). (Joela Jones, p.; Franz Welser-Möst, cond.)

"Perhaps hygiene and art can never be bedfellows. No Verdi, after all, without spitting into trumpets." So muses a character in Aldous Huxley’s Time Must Have a Stop. It's a variation on the old theme of the ideal versus the real: can the celestial exist in the absence of the mundane? Well, parts of the Four Sacred Pieces, dating from the tail end of Verdi’s life, are as otherworldly as anything the composer wrote. And two of the four pieces not only exclude those unwholesome trumpets—they dispense with the orchestra altogether.

Yet, at Thursday evening’s concert by Franz Welser-Möst and the Cleveland Orchestra, there was a tremendous amount of earthy, operatic energy even in the Sacred Pieces’ a capella segments—in the second half of the “Ave Maria,” for example. And the performance of the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, though mostly excellent, fell somewhat short of being angelically pristine. There were hints of uncertainty in a few quiet passages, and at times, the choral writing was swamped by the orchestra—the line “Quando corpus morietur,” for example, sung by the basses near the end of the “Stabat Mater.” Nonetheless, at its best—as in the fortissimo eruptions of sound at a couple of points in the same piece—this was an engaging performance.

Verdi’s Sacred Pieces were joined on the program by Stravinsky’s Movements for Piano and Orchestra. Principal Keyboardist Joela Jones sounded a bit out of her element in this rather elusive score. And yet her interpretation was distinctive and interesting, focusing the listener’s attention on the mechanics of the piano’s sound rather than on the work’s musical contours.

Two pieces by Bach rounded out Thursday evening’s concert: the third Orchestral Suite, BWV 1068, and the Contrapunctus XIX from The Art of Fugue, performed in the orchestration of Luciano Berio. Berio’s reworking of Bach’s unfinished fugue suffered from acoustic quirks. From my seat, the sound of Robert Vernon’s viola stood out very awkwardly from the rest of the ensemble. The effect might well have been entirely different two seats in either direction.

Franz Welser-Möst’s version of the Suite, meanwhile, had a hint of old-fashioned flavoring, recalling last year’s version of the St. Matthew Passion. The slow sections of the Ouverture were slightly stodgy, the famous Air sentimentally shaped. But Welser Möst did a rather better job than Nicholas McGegan—who conducted the first Suite and second Brandenburg back in February—of keeping Bach’s writing lucid despite the uneven acoustics of Severance Hall and the comparatively plush sound of modern instruments.

Nonetheless, some concertgoers, faced with the consequences of such sonic richness, might find they prefer being flat Baroque.

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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