Mozart
Rondo in C for Violin and Orchestra, K373
Birtwistle
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra [Boston Symphony Orchestra commission: world premiere]
Bartók
Violin Concerto No.2
Christian Tetzlaff (violin)
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Marcelo Lehninger
Reviewed by: Susan Stempleski
Reviewed: 3 March, 2011
Venue: Boston Symphony Hall
Two days before this concert the Boston Symphony Orchestra announced that James Levine was stepping down from his post as Music Director and withdrawing from his appearances for the remainder of this season due to ongoing medical problems. For this challenging program, which included the BSO’s only world premiere this season, the young (31) Brazilian Marcelo Lehninger, one of the orchestra’s two assistant conductors for the 2010-2011 season, was tapped to replace Levine. Lehninger, who made an impressive Symphony Hall debut last October leading the orchestra in music by Barber, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky with Pinchas Zukerman as soloist, carried off this ambitious concert with energy, confidence and grace.
Tetzlaff’s playing was also dazzling in Bartók’s Second Violin Concerto. Bartok’s score covers an enormous range of moods and language, and Tetzlaff perfectly balanced the work’s lyricism along with the more forceful, vigorous sounds that occasionally interfere. His reading was completely focused, confident and highly personalized. In the opening he displayed a gritty intensiveness, gradually expanding his range of color and sonority to conjure a gorgeously glowing tone in the slow movement, and in the finale he produced a rich and lithesome sound that was bright enough to cut through Bartók’s forceful orchestration.
- Further performances on March 4, 5 & 8
- Boston Symphony Orchestra