Benjamin Zander's concerts with the RTÉ NSO stand apart from most of the orchestra's other work.
Michael Dervan, The Irish Times, March 2005
Posted: 2005-03-07 11:07:30
Gubanova, Lewis - RTÉ NSO Zander - NCH, Dublin
Mozart - Symphony No 40. Mahler + Das Lied von der Erde
The collective dynamic alters in a myriad of ways. The string tone changes, so that the weight is spread around the stage, and not just focused in the centre, where, with the exception of the double basses, most of the sound usually appears to come from.
The scale of the playing changes, too, so that more is achieved with less, with finer grading in the middle ground ensuring that the extremities of loud and soft can make far more of an impression when they need to be explored.
The character of the music-making changes too, with a frequently strengthened sense of individual character in solo lines, and suggestions of the interactive interplay that usually characterises chamber music rather than orchestral performances.
And these results are all achieved without apparent fuss, in a way that allows listeners almost to take them for granted. We should be so lucky.
The music of Mozart has long been effectively one of this orchestra's blind spots, or, rather, something of a blind spot of many of the conductors who work on it with them. Friday's performance of the late G minor Symphony was one which captured the work's many undertones without any sense of undue effort or strain, and, with lightened textures, allowed listeners to appreciate the extraordinary expressive richness of Mozart's contrapuntal mastery.
The lightness of touch, the overt contrapuntal concerns of the music-making, and the expressive potency were evident, too, in Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde.
The tenor's burdens were heroically borne by Keith Lewis, and in the altogether more intimately rewarding alto part, especially the heartbreak of the closing "Das Abschied," the Russian mezzo soprano Ekaterina Gubanova reinforced the very favourable impression she made at the Wexford Festival last October.
