Sarkastische Dissonanzen
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
21.02.2023
The timpani beats of Ludwig van Beethoven's only violin concerto in D major, op. 61, often indicate the interpretation of this work, which can be read in so many different ways, as either rather lyrically vocal or emphatically determined. Paavo Järvi and the Concertgebouworkest, the most important symphony orchestra in the Netherlands, opened the work in the Alte Oper with a quiet but insistent tone, foreshadowing that the performance with soloist Lisa Batiashvili would be more complex. And indeed, the violinist, who was born in Tbilisi in 1979 and lives in Germany, impressed with an intensity of the instrumental vocal passages that were so pure and deeply felt, but also with her dialogue-strong fine-tuning, which she and the orchestra achieved in the moving passages. The real coup of Batiashvili's performance, however, turned out to be her choice of solo cadenzas by the composer Alfred Schnittke in the first and last movements, in which several quotations from other violin concertos, whether by Bach, Brahms or Bartók, flashed up.
While Järvi, as guest conductor, had the Concertgebouw Orchestra play slenderly in sound and instrumentation, yet extremely versatilely on modern instruments, the overwhelming dramaturgy of Sergei Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5 in B flat major op. 100 was heard in opulent form. The world-class level of the Amsterdam orchestra was evident not least in the fact that everything was open, even many a gallantly deep comment from the tuba, which admittedly did not hide the fact that the symphony, first performed in Moscow in January 1945, remains outwardly faithful to the line of Socialist Realism. Nevertheless, Järvi, who had already briefly put the brakes on the roll of jubilation at the end of the first movement, and even more so the orchestra, which played with breathtaking perfection and precision, succeeded in placing many a cleverly disturbing question mark, for example when the trumpets in the finale placed their extremely fast repeated notes in an almost mechanical chattering manner. The encore was the "Valse triste" by Jean Sibelius.
https://www.faz.net/aktuell/rhein-main/kultur/konzert-mit-lisa-batiashvili-18696075.html
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