Tonhalle Orchester de Zúrich: fuerza expresiva formidable

 Heraldo

Luis A. Bes

Clear, unctuous and powerful sound with a surgically precise tuning from the pegbox to the bridge. A formidable bowing technique with decisive attacks and great sonorous balance. Lisa Batiashvili has an elegant technique and an upright posture. The Georgian violinist seemed to search for sound beyond her left shoulder, filling her fingers with music like the great masters of the Russian school, one of whom, Maxim Vengerov, will be visiting us shortly. Her weighted, natural vibrato imbued the phrases of her powerful Guarneri del Gesu with character. With such interpretative style she endowed Prokofiev's Concerto No. 2 with a formidable expressive fluency. Thus, in the allegro, Batiashvili expanded on one of the Russian composer's most felicitous melodic revelations. And in the andante, she flew her embellishments over the string melody, leading in the finale to a display of expressive power of the first magnitude. She gave as an encore ‘Dance of the Knights’, from ‘Romeo and Juliet’, by Prokofiev himself.

The Tonhalle Orchester-Zürich, conducted by Paavo Järvi, had begun with the overture to Mozart's ‘Don Giovanni’, where the Helvetians showed the first flashes of genius.

The programme brought again a symphony by Shostakovich: number 6, which they started with a compact sound, weaving very well its complex harmonies with a good role of the English horn, clarinets, bassoons, violas and cellos. In the allegro the Zurichers achieved a typically ‘Shostakovichian’ display of pandemonium with the woodwind instruments at the top of their registers. The Tonhalle outlined thunderous salvos from the brass with some xylophone blows, exhibiting in the presto abundant robustness and creating a sparkling explosion of farewell. And as an encore ‘Tahiti Trot’, by Shostakovich himself.

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