Saturday, I attended a concert of the Louisiana Philharmonic with the
following program:

Humperdinck: Overture to Hansel and Gretel
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 9
Brahms: Violin Concerto

Timothy Muffett, new music director for the Baton Rouge Symphony and late of
Austin, TX, conducted.  Pinchas Zuckerman soloed in the Brahms.

Moffett is a charming fellow but not the sharpest baton in the box.  He
delivers mainly okay performances.  Both the Humperdinck and the
Shostakovich are favorite pieces.   The Humperdinck opera to me flows with
inspiration throughout, and the quality of the overture reflects that in
little.  Humperdinck to me stands just slightly behind Wagner and Strauss as
a Wagnerian-opera composer, and I'm at a bit of a loss to explain his rather
low profile among classical-music lovers.   The Shostakovich 9 delights as
well, with a perky wit and unexpected depths here and there.  Both works
suffered from raggedy playing and from Moffett's failure to keep the
narrative coherent.  The Shostakovich in particular seemed held together by
gum and duct tape.

The second half was reserved for the star turn.  I've never been
particularly fond of Zuckerman's recordings.  I've found most of them pretty
pedestrian.  Live, however, the man's a dynamo.  He's probably played the
Brahms so often he could do it in his sleep, but we got instead an intense,
gorgeous, impassioned reading, with even a sense of "making it up as he goes
along."  Every phrase was explored and mined for nuance, and yet the sense
of the whole remained apparent throughout.  I've also never seen a performer
more at home on a stage.  The orchestra soared with Zuckerman.  Players were
actually looking at him, rather than at the  conductor for entrances.  I
doubt Moffett caught even one eye of one string player.  The tone went from
small-town pro to golden and warm.  A highpoint of my year.

Steve Schwartz