A grand seigneur was won for the penultimate of the season concerts organized by the Bruckner Orchestra in the Brucknerhaus in Linz: Charles Dutoit’s conducting career began in the late 1950s and took him to many of the most important orchestras, the Orchester symphonique de Montréal rose under his direction between 1977 and 2002 to absolute world class. This could also be experienced on Saturday, when the now 85-year-old played Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony and the 2nd suite from Stravinsky’s “Firebird” with the Bruckner Orchestra.
On the one hand, this seemed to happen with admirable ease, with a physical suppleness with which, standing absolutely above things, he not only made Stravinsky’s fine score ring out, but made it shimmer.
On the other hand, he had the orchestra firmly in his grip and demanded that every nuance of the score be implemented. In addition, he masterfully explored the balance between the groups of instruments. He demanded a pianissimo that came out of nowhere and, conversely, never allowed the forte to grow into a noisy chaos. Always dosed in such a way that transparency was the primary goal of interpretation.
The emotional component of the music was never neglected either, and the audience could look forward to Stravinsky’s fascinating world of sound in the form of his passionate “Firebird” performed in an extremely vivid way. With Tchaikovsky’s E minor symphony, Charles Dutoit also proved to be a magician of sound, letting the orchestra play anything but in an undifferentiated intoxication of sound that was wrongly viewed as romantic. Instead, the Swiss choreographed the togetherness of the voices.
Emotionally gripping
Here, too, the focus was on transparency, the detection of seemingly irrelevant details that produce attractive contrasts. And yet all this structured fine-tuning was for one purpose: to actually exhaust the passion of this work and thus to emotionally seduce the audience. But even the best conductor can do nothing if there aren’t musicians sitting across from him who are able to implement his sound visions in a concentrated manner and with the greatest enthusiasm. Everyone had internalized every impulse that evening, from the brilliant tutti to the bravura solos. The result was a compelling and individual interpretation that pushed the extremes of the score to the limit. It is an open question whether the introductory “Adagio for Strings” by Samuel Barber was used. Although finely played, it seemed like an appendage. (wuss)
Source: Nachrichten
