I just got back from Cleveland, my home town.  My wife and I hooked up with
listmember Eric Kisch and his wife, Sue, for dinner and a concert of the
Cleveland Orchestra.

Cleveland has changed greatly since I lived there.  It has been a more
than bit grungy, although the underlying layout of the place promised
great beauty.  Playhouse Square, so named because of its aggregation of
old vaudeville theaters, has benefitted from an energetic rebuilding and
restoration effort, with many of the old theaters turning from haggard to
handsome, and the crescent layout of some of the streets accentuated.  A
similar renovation effort is occuring "uptown" at Severance Hall, the home
of the Cleveland Orchestra.  The financial goal for renovating Severance
was announced at 100 million dollars.  So far, they've raised about 95
million, which in Cleveland constitutes chump change for somebody.  All
this without bond issues and a new NFL franchise.

While the Severance renovation proceeds (it's scheduled to re-open early
next year), the orchestra plays at the Allen Theater, a place for big-deal,
first-run movies when I was a boy.  My father claims to remember Bert
Williams performing there.  The renovation has bundled together at least
four theaters - the Allen, the State, the Ohio, and the Palace (where I
first saw Cinerama) - into one interconnecting complex.  We had a leisurely
dinner at a restaurant in the complex (right next to the Allen, as a matter
of fact), walked through a passageway and - Bob's your uncle - found
ourselves in the Allen's rotunda lobby.

The place has been restored to a fare-thee-well.  I remember it mainly
as dark and dingy.  This time I was astonished at the gorgeous creams and
blues.  People have complained about the acoustics, and I admit I have
no ear for that kind of thing.  So it seemed fine to me.  One could hear
transparent pianissimos and fortissimos.  Jahja Ling led the orchestra in
the following program:

Bernard Rand: "Le Tambourin" Suite No. 2
Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 4
Nielsen: Symphony No. 5

Hillary Hahn soloed in the Mozart.

Rand, raised and trained in England, has written an opera on van Gogh
and extracted two suites.  I missed the reason why he calls them "Le
Tambourin," since that's, as far as I know, a painting by Manet.  Each
movement of the second suite is based on a van Gogh painting or two.  As
you might expect, the music is pictorial rather than argumentative.  The
orchestration is outstanding, but not, as in many contemporary pictorial
pieces, everything.  There are real musical ideas for Rand to develop, and
he does, with as great a virtuosity as he lavishes on his orchestra.  The
last movement in particular, inspired by van Gogh's famous painting of a
cathedral in Arles, Rand builds from the simple interval of a second, which
becomes the tolling of bells.  If Rand has a weakness, it's the lack of
memorable melody, so I'm not sure how well the opera would come off.
Nevertheless, he is one terrific instrumental composer.  As for the playing
- well, it was the Cleveland Orchestra at peak form.  Some people say the
Berlin Philharmonic is better.  I've never heard the BPO live, but basing
my opinion solely on recordings, I don't agree.

Hillary Hahn came on for the Mozart.  Wow, that kid is a *kid*, for
heaven's sake.  What is she? Nineteen? I don't much care for the Mozart
violin concerti (except for the "Turkish" fifth), but she made a believer
out of me.  She has everything - intonation, articulation, a command of
color and the singing line.  Obviously, she's practiced a lot, but the most
obvious quality of her playing is the "artlessness" of it.  Most players,
even most great virtuosi, make you aware of their decisions about the piece
or of how hard they've worked.  Hahn sounds as if she's just picked up
the fiddle, and the most wonderful sounds sing out spontaneously - the
archetypal Aeolian harp.  Her playing reminds me of the young Menuhin's.
I was grinning from ear to ear throughout the performance.  Yet, it wasn't
all Hahn.  I'd say that Ling and the orchestra provided a perfect
accompaniment, if "perfection" didn't imply something static or even
passive.  The players molded their music to the soloist's.  It was like
listening to a great string quartet - individuals pressing forward and
pulling back, a conversation among the supremely civilized.  The Cleveland
audience, one of the most reticent in the world (in my very limited
experience), went nuts at the end, without giving a standing ovation.
Hahn obliged with an encore:  the allegro from Bach's 3rd sonata for solo
violin.  Bach became, not the master of counterpoint or the builder of
mighty intellectual musical structures, but the most natural thing in the
world.  You heard the counterpoint, all right, but it was two instruments
singing and dancing.  I rushed right out and bought two CDs in the lobby
during intermission (and got Hahn to sign them!).  Based on her Mozart, I
thought she'd be phenomenal in the Beethoven, and, of course, I'd just
heard her Bach.

I have high standards for Nielsen's fifth.  Bernstein's recording
introduced me to the work, and Horenstein performed it better than anybody,
at least on record.  This live performance, however, made me realize its
complexity - a bear not only to interpretation but to just playing and
keeping everything together.  Especially in the second movement, with its
magnificent fugue, Nielsen makes extensive use of overlapping entrances,
not only for subject entries but for color changes in the line.  That is,
ideally the line begins with one color, moves to a transitional, secondary
color, and ends up in a third.  At least, that's the effect when the
playing is seamless, as it was here.  But this is not really just the
orchestra, as the Mozart accompaniment wasn't just the orchestra.  Ling,
I don't believe very well known outside of Cleveland, not only had a great
instrument, but the vision and the skill to know what to do with it.  I
may have missed the fire of Horenstein and Bernstein (both of whom turn it
into a document of World War I), I got a nobility they missed.  It was an
unusual performance, in that the second movement made a greater impact than
the angry first, and I believe that closer to Nielsen's intent - or (since
I have no idea what Nielsen intended) at least closer to my conception of
Nielsen as the great artist of sanity and balance.  A towering performance
of a masterpiece.

Steve Schwartz