Ashkar, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra/ChaillyNCH, Dublin Mendelssohn — Hebrides Overture. Piano Concerto No 1. Mussorgsky — Night on the bare mountain. Mussorgsky/Ravel — Pictures at an Exhibition.
The last time the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra played in Ireland was for three nights at the Belfast Festival of 1986.
Leipzig, of course, was then the far side of the Iron Curtain, culturally isolated from the Western world in ways that the Internet now makes hard to imagine. As a result the playing of the Gewandhaus Orchestra was, as the saying goes, steeped in tradition. But it was also bound by it. There was a consistency to it, a kind of overweight lushness, that could be felt whether it matched the needs of the music of not.
The Gewandhaus Orchestra of the 21st century has preserved aspects of its old tonal character – characterful woodwind, incisive trumpets, imposing heavy brass – but rebalanced the string sound so the playing is now leaner in tone and a lot more adaptable .
Tonal changes in orchestras have a lot to do with whoever conducts them, and the orchestra’s current music director, Riccardo Chailly, is a man of unfussy ways. He’s musically observant, and sharp on the delivery of telling detail. This was immediately obvious in his handling of Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture, with often forceful, tightly-knit woodwind contributions, and the frequent swirls of the writing were placed to telling effect.
Saleem Abboud Ashkar was the well-bred, fleet, genteel soloist in Mendelssohn’s G minor Piano Concerto. He played with impressively rounded tone, and remained unruffled in the face of demanding passage-work. But, for all the control of the rapid fingerwork, the overall effect was a little bland.
The second half of the evening was an all-Russian affair offering two works by Mussorgsky. His Night on the bare mountain was heard in the cleaned up version by Rimsky- Korsakov, his Pictures at an Exhibition presented through the familiar Frenchifying lens of the orchestration by Ravel.
Chailly and his Leipzig players delivered both with attractive freshness, coming into their own in the Pictures, where the conductor's careful pacing and refusal to go over the top paid dividends. The greatest delight of his approach is his attention to detail. He picked up on apparent minutiae in the percussion writing so that you wondered why they had never sounded so effective before. And, excuse the pun, he always kept his eye on the bigger picture, so that the conclusion at The Great Gate of Kiev could round off the work with a sense of noble grandeur. Michael Dervan
