CONCERT REVIEW: From Amsterdam

April 10, 2008

Here is a translatd review, from Janelle Gelfand's blog.

http://frontier.cincinnati.com/blogs/classical/
Wenneke Savenye. NRC Handelsblad

Jansen finds Järvi flawless

Never before has the Cincinnati Symphony orchestra - according to Paavo Järvi "the most European orchestra of America"- played in the Concertgebouw. This month the orchestra - founded in 1895 and directedby illustrious figures like Richard Strauss (oops, he was never a music director, but likely guest-conducted) Leopold Stokowski and Fritz Reiner and Eugene Ysaye- gives 12 concerts in 5 European countries. Nikolai Luganski and Janine Jansen are alternating soloists. In Amsterdam, Jansen - who made her debut already in 2005 with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra with the Tchaikovsky violin concerto- impressed with her lyricand intrusive interpretation of the Britten violin concerto in D Minor. Taken bythis melancholic piece, Jansen played the moving opening movement with stilled profundity and instrumental refinement, but in the sweeping vivace her musical engagement surfaced again. In dialogues full of temperament with the sensitive playing orchestra, Jansen reached at some points chamber music clarity. After a spectacular solo cadenza, Jansen and Järvi and the orchestra unfailingly (flawlessly) were of the same mind in the macabre melancholia of the passacaglia. The encore was the sarabande from the 2nd partita for solo violin by Bach. After Járvi had already had shown in his carefully built-up but toomuscular view of Arvo Pärts "Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten," the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra exhibited a warm-blooded string section, which played with great nuance, and the brass section exploded in golden glory during the sonorous and expansive interpretation of the 10th Symphony by Shostakovich. It became clear also in the encore - a sultry (sensual) waltz bySibelius- why Järvi considers his orchestra so European: the Cincinnati SymphonyOrchestra combines the sonority and instrumental discipline of many American orchestras with a remarkable refinement in sound colors and dynamics.