DSO Streams Beethoven and Mendelssohn

Screen shot of Jonathan Biss at the keyboard performing with Delyana Lazarova conducting the DSO

Early yesterday evening my wife and I once again enjoyed our dinner while watching a live-stream of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO). Conductor Delyana Lazarova prepared a straightforward overture-concerto-symphony program, with an intermission prior to the symphony. That symphony was Felix Mendelssohn’s Op. Posth. 90, his fourth symphony given the title “Italian.” The concerto soloist was Jonathan Biss, performing Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 19 (second) piano concerto, composed in the key of B-flat major. The program began with the overture that Carl Maria von Weber composed for this three-act opera Oberon.

Biss used to make regular appearances in San Francisco. One of my earliest articles on this site was written in March of 2007, when I wrote about a recital he performed with particular attention to Robert Schumann’s “Kreisleriana.” That selection was preceded by compositions by both Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven; and I was struck by how Biss made one of the Mozart selections, movements from the K. 533 piano sonata in F major, sound as if they has been composed by Schumann!

I am happy to report that, yesterday evening, Biss made Beethoven sound like Beethoven. Opus 19 is an early work, and Beethoven composed it in high spirits. Biss found just the right sensitivity in his touch to convey those spirits without overplaying them. This often involved cheerful interjections of comments from the ensemble, and Lazarova knew just how to play her side of the dialogue. As might be expected, Biss responded to the audience applause with an encore. Sure enough, he selected more Beethoven: the Adagio cantabile (second) movement from one of the composer’s early piano sonatas, Opus 13 in C minor, given the title “Sonata Pathétique.”

Lazarova’s approaches to the instrumental selections were as spirited in rhetoric as the sonata was. Weber’s opera took a French medieval tale and seems to have examined it through the lens of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream. These days, the opera (when it is performed at all) is more likely to be presented in concert, rather than in a staged version. Nevertheless, the overture stands well on its own and tends to be popular among most concert lovers. That includes the audience for last night’s DSO performance!

In introducing her program, Lazarova declared Mendelssohn to be “the only composer to make a minor key seem heavy.” I assume she had in mind the tarantella movement that concludes the “Italian” symphony. She clearly enjoyed conducting this music; and, for the most part, the DSO musicians seemed to enjoy her enjoyment! I must confess that this is one of those compositions that I feel I have encountered too many times, but the freshness of Lazarova’s interpretation definitely got the better of me!

This is a conductor I would be happy to encounter again under other circumstances (in case anyone in Davies Symphony Hall happens to be reading this)!