Bernard Jacobson, Seen and Heard International
February 1, 2012

Commissioned by the Seattle Symphony jointly with the Kitchener-Waterloo and Winnipeg symphony orchestras, Nico Muhly’s So Far So Good gave the audience at these Seattle subscription concerts much to enjoy. Muhly, born in Vermont thirty years ago and now living in New York, is a craftsmanlike composer with an acute ear for orchestral sonorities. But, more than that, his new roughly 15-minute piece manages to be simple without being simplistic.

The opening measures are immediately engaging, stertorous interjections in the lower brass interacting with a prevailing curtain of delicate harmonies. This proves to be suggestive of the path the entire piece is to follow: there is something reminiscent of Bachian chorale prelude technique, even of the still older language of the Renaissance cantus firmus, in Muhly’s superimposition of long-breathed melodic lines – many of them, beautifully played on this occasion, for solo woodwinds and brass – against a texture of rapid figurations in a variety of other instruments.

Altogether it was a refreshing world premiere, well contrasted with the rest of a basically romantic program. The second half was devoted to Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto – the one in F minor, and actually the first in order of composition. The soloist was the widely admired Marc-André Hamelin, who may still be regarded as a “young lion” of the keyboard even though he recently turned 50.

There can be no questioning Hamelin’s spectacular virtuosity, and he dashed off even the most challenging passages as if they were child’s play. To my ears, however, his tone in the upper reaches of the keyboard didn’t often sing, and I also thought there was something exterior rather than poetic – something almost hectoring – about his attack on the music’s occasional outbursts of forte and fortissimo chords. As I have found in the past, Hamelin is an interpreter who seems to be better attuned to Lisztian rhetoric than to Chopinesque intimacy – and this was borne out by the encore he gave us, a Liszt arrangement of a Chopin song, which he played to coruscating perfection.

The middle of the program was supplied by Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony, which was afforded an eloquent performance, by turns lyrical and compellingly dramatic, under Ludovic Morlot’s direction. Without any fussy underlining of tempo differences, the conductor managed to make the pulse of the work’s two movements, both written in triple meter, sound subtly different – perhaps the hardest nut in this masterpiece to crack convincingly – and the orchestra responded to its still new-ish music director with powerfully committed playing.

by Dana Wen,The Sun Break
January 28, 2012

Ludovic Morlot’s been hard at work. Although it’s only been a few months into his first season as music director of the Seattle Symphony, Morlot has already made waves with his adventurous programming and fresh approach to the symphonic repertoire. Thursday night’s concert was no exception, sandwiching Schubert’s beloved “Unfinished” Symphony No. 8 between a world premiere by Nico Muhly and a performance of Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 by Marc-André Hamelin. The Symphony will perform the same program again tonight.

In many ways, these works are worlds apart. However, when they’re performed together as part of a unified program, listeners are invited to draw parallels between the pieces. In this way, a program that initially seems like a musical grab-bag is be transformed into an insightful exploration of a single musical concept. At Thursday’s concert, the theme of the night seemed to be musical texture. All three pieces on the program cycle through a wide variety of orchestral textures in a short amount of time, creating a musical landscape full of changing moods and colors.

The concert opened with Nico Muhly’s world premiere, a one-movement work playfully titled So Far So Good. Born in Vermont and currently based in New York City, Muhly is a young composer whose star is on the rise. Only thirty years old, he’s already racked up an impressive list of accomplishments, including an upcoming opera premiere at the Met, an ongoing gig as assistant to eminent composer Philip Glass, and collaborations with Björk.

In So Far So Good, Muhly uses repeating melodic themes and ever-shifting textures to create a work that is atmospheric and sonically rich. Contrasting textures in different sections of the orchestra are often combined and overlapped. For example, at the beginning of the work, Muhly juxtaposes a smooth, legato string part with short, staccato bursts from the brass and percussion. Morlot managed the flowing textures well, guiding the ensemble through sudden transitions and mood changes.

So Far So Good paired surprisingly well with the second piece on the program, Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony, another work that features dramatic shifts in mood and texture. Although Schubert was only able to complete the first two movements of the symphony before his death in 1828, the “Unfinished” is one of his most popular works. The piece flows rapidly through a huge spectrum of orchestral colors, ranging from a sweet, tender cello melody to grand gestures that utilize a full orchestral sound. The woodwind section sounded fantastic in the handful of solos and duets throughout the work, particularly Ben Hausmann on oboe, Christopher Sereque on clarinet, and Demarre McGill on flute.

The evening concluded with a performance of Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2, featuring Marc-André Hamelin as the soloist. Although Schubert and Chopin both heralded from the Romantic tradition of classical composition, the “Unfinished” Symphony is miles away from Chopin’s concerto in terms of tone and texture. Schubert’s Symphony focuses on a full range of orchestral sound, while Chopin’s work utilizes the orchestra to accentuate the expressive power of the piano.

One of the most technically skilled pianists alive today, Hamelin is known for pushing the limits of what is physically possible on the piano. In addition to his international acclaim as a concert pianist, he is well-known as the composer of “Circus Galop”, a work for player piano that many consider to be the world’s most difficult piano piece.

The Chopin piano concerto was an excellent choice to showcase a different side of Hamelin’s artistry. Although Chopin’s compositions call for a virtuosic technique, his music is full of tender moments in which a simple melodic passage is imbued with great emotional intensity. Hamelin struck a harmonious balance between flashy technique and musical expression, sailing through difficult fast passages without batting an eye, but bringing out a delicate singing tone in sections that were slower and more melodic.

Morlot’s conducting talent and leadership abilities earned Seattle Symphony a recent mention in the New York Times. NYT music critic Zachary Woolfe reviewed Thursday night’s concert and commented favorably on Morlot’s accomplishments and vision for the orchestra: “Watching Seattle in the coming years will be fun”. If the excitement of Thursday night’s performance is any indication, Seattle’s new maestro’s on the right track.

By Gavin Borchert, The Seattle Weekly
January 25 2012

If in his first concerts with the Seattle Symphony last fall, music director Ludovic Morlot staked his claim with unconventional programming and an enthusiasm for the modern, his return last week, after a few months away, focused on a couple of works from the very center of the standard repertory. He still had plenty of surprises to spring, however.

With half the orchestra on Attila duty at McCaw Hall, Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony was played with a smaller-than-usual contingent at a free concert last Wednesday in City Hall’s airy atrium. I’m convinced Beethoven sounds best this way: When the wind/string balance is tilted in favor of the winds, the overall sound is beefier and more colorful. In the first movement, for example, the composer at one point sets flute and oboe alone in treacherous dialogue with the entire body of strings; the moment really popped out, bright and balanced, with 27 string players rather than the usual 50-plus. Epitomizing the performance’s tightness and vigor were this movement’s two closing chords, with the impact of a fist. Morlot has the Seventh scheduled again for April 2013; I hope he again uses a slimmed-down orchestra.

Morlot’s taste for fast tempos set the Seventh’s ferocious finale on fire; he never lowered the temperature for a second–need it or not. Still, I wished he were occasionally more of a lingerer. He kept Beethoven’s full-throated second movement pressing forward, bringing it a compelling hint of emotional unsettledness. In this movement’s coda, though, the pace yearns to slacken. The music seems to lose itself in distracted reminiscence, with the main theme wandering around the orchestra in two-bar fragments. It wasn’t until Saturday’s concert that I got an idea why Morlot declined to loosen the reins here.

Unexpectedly, and fascinatingly, his Saturday-night Benaroya Hall performance of a symphony written only 11 years later, Schubert’s “Unfinished,” came from another planet: broad Romantic climaxes, floaty tempo nuances, dreamily fading phrase endings, transitions that seemed suspended in time. (So spacious, in fact, was Morlot’s handling of Schubert’s first movement, labeled Allegro moderato, that it came out roughly the same tempo as his second, Andante con moto.) Easily the least Beethovenlike “Unfinished” I’ve ever heard, it seemed to exemplify a view of the two contemporaries as antitheses that dates back to Schumann (recently re-explored by musicologists discussing issues of gender and sexuality). Dramatic vs. lyrical, punchy hooks vs. songlike melodies, constructivist vs. ruminative, goal-oriented vs. drifting through a succession of pleasurable presents: Morlot’s Beethoven and Schubert stood at opposing aesthetic poles in a provocative take on these two warhorses, especially when heard back-to-back.

The other main event of the week, preceding the Schubert on Saturday, was the unveiling of an enjoyable new work, a commission from Nico Muhly, probably the most active American composer of his age (30). So Far So Good opens with dark string chords in Britten-flavored harmonies, comforting yet hinting at something slightly ominous. Before long, a trombone and snare drum interrupt harshly, as if trying to break in from outside. Soon after comes a shining, Copland-like trumpet aria. The mood changes with a chugging wind passage; and from then on the music seems to triangulate among these moods: consoling, agitated, mechanistic (though the work, 17 minutes long or so, is a lot more diffuse than this schema would suggest).

Muhly’s glinting, chiming orchestration moves along grooves very familiar to anyone who’s heard any new instrumental music of the past 20 years. John Adams has basically ruined this kind of sound, which has become his trademark, for any other composer; it was hard to hear Muhly’s sparking high violins and splashes of metal percussion without thinking of his older colleague. Beguiling though it all was, the piece’s ending came as startlingly, bafflingly arbitrary–and suddenly the meaning of the title became clear. It sounded as if Muhly had broken off composition at some random point, evaluated what he’d written, then jotted down the flippant title. Maybe he intends to write a persuasive ending someday, and retitle it—So Far, So Much Better?

by Zachary Woolfe, New York Times
January 27, 2012

SEATTLE — At a cocktail party on Wednesday evening in an art-filled home in the fashionable Capitol Hill neighborhood here, Andrew Russell, the 28-year-old artistic director of the Intiman Theater, addressed a small crowd in front of a picture window and unexpectedly mentioned Ludovic Morlot. Assuming that the Intiman could stabilize its shaky finances, Mr. Russell said, he had confirmed a 2013 collaboration with Mr. Morlot, the new music director of the Seattle Symphony, on a production blending text and sound that would investigate music’s effects on the mind and body.

Earlier that day Mr. Morlot, 38, had stood in a light-filled room at City Hall, his hair still matted with sweat after a vigorous performance of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony in the lobby atrium, and announced his orchestra’s adventurous plans for 2012-13.

It is just halfway through Mr. Morlot’s first season here, and just a few years after this French-born former violinist rose swiftly to prominence in last-minute appearances with the New York Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. But his presence from downtown to Capitol Hill, from the seat of city government to young theatrical circles, is already a sign of the leader he would like to be and the orchestra he envisions: central to Seattle’s cultural scene, open-minded and with a taste for collaboration and experimentation.

In both the orchestra’s passionate, flexible playing in several concerts this week and in its programs for next season, Mr. Morlot’s vision has been clear and heartening. There are certainly challenges on the long road to his goal of establishing Seattle as one of the top 10 orchestras in America. A more robust endowment needs to be built, the ensemble’s rough edges (lapses in intonation, wiry brashness in the strings, a sense of pushing the sound) buffed and the morale of the players wholly mended after a tumultuous, often bitter ending to its long relationship with Mr. Morlot’s predecessor, Gerard Schwarz.

But the orchestra has great advantages: a beautiful, comfortable home in the centrally located Benaroya Hall, a devoted audience and, in Mr. Morlot, an inspiring conductor. An elegantly planned and executed concert on Thursday evening featured the premiere of “So Far So Good,” a new work by the composer Nico Muhly, and a major soloist (the pianist Marc-André Hamelin, playing with velvety lucidity) in a major concerto (Chopin’s No. 2 in F minor).

“So Far So Good,” in which small themes recur as they move around the orchestra over low, shifting harmonies, had the same kind of slowly developing phrases as the first movement of Schubert’s Eighth Symphony, which followed it on the program. Mr. Morlot is especially good at sustaining pulse and finding overarching lines of energy through works, and the Muhly piece, whose individually lovely moments didn’t always cohere, benefited from a sure hand guiding the changeable score.

A highlight of next season is another premiere from an American composer: John Luther Adams’s “Become Ocean,” which Mr. Morlot described as Mr. Adams’s largest-scale orchestral work yet, and which the orchestra will take to Carnegie Hall as part of the Spring for Music Festival in 2014. It is hard to think of a composer better suited to a city than Mr. Adams, with his sweeping yet delicate evocations of the natural world, will be to the outdoors-obsessed Seattle. (In November the other John Adams will conduct his own “Harmonielehre” and Beethoven’s “Emperor” Piano Concerto.)

People already seem to like spending time in Benaroya Hall, which is full of cafes and intimate corners. So it makes sense that the orchestra’s first new-music series, cheekily named [untitled], will take place on three late-night Fridays amid drinks and conversation in the hall’s airy lobby. The first program features music written in 1962 by Cage, Xenakis, Ligeti and others, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Seattle World’s Fair; the second puts Schoenberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire” alongside newer pieces by Jörg Widmann and Daniel Schnyder. But most intriguing is the last, with three premieres of works by musicians in the orchestra.

That program speaks to Mr. Morlot’s interest in fostering Seattle’s resident composers, a commitment also reflected in the annual Sonic Evolution event, which brings in new works inspired by Seattle’s past and present pop-music scene, from Jimi Hendrix to Kurt Cobain.

Presenting music written by orchestra members is also a powerful gesture of good will toward players who sometimes felt alienated by Mr. Schwarz. In his season announcement Mr. Morlot was effusive in his praise of his musicians, saying that they “don’t need us on the podium except to remind them how good they are.”

It was a telling choice that in the current season, dominated by big-name soloists, room was made last Saturday for the orchestra’s former concertmaster, the elegant violinist Maria Larionoff, in Peteris Vasks’s 1998 concerto, “Distant Light.” Conducted by a guest, Olari Elts, rather than by Mr. Morlot, the program included staples — symphonies by Haydn and Mendelssohn — that sounded a little raw, but the performance of the Vasks concerto was stunning, incisive in folk-music passages and radiant in its tidal harmonic changes.

While the orchestra is sounding its best in newer music, Mr. Morlot isn’t a firebrand, and he spoke as enthusiastically — well, almost — about a program of Rossini, Schumann and Brahms as he did about introducing Messiaen to the orchestra for the first time. (The “Turangalila Symphony” comes next year.)

His plans, while bold, are also sensible. But he still needs his board’s full and sustained support of his mission. That means the increased presence of modern and contemporary music on subscription programs, an ever larger [untitled] series and financing for new commissions.

Watching Seattle in the coming years will be fun. When announcing the next season, Mr. Morlot made a rare jumble of an English idiom. “In my taste everything is very exciting,” he said. He meant “in my opinion,” but he was right either way.

Jen Graves posted on lineout.thestranger.com
January 26, 2012

The season lineup is huge—dozens upon dozens of concerts and events. But the highlights are:

1. A new series called [untitled], of late-night contemporary music in the lobby at Benaroya Hall. There are three of these concerts; they start at 10 pm on Fridays. The first, in October, celebrates the 50th anniversary of the World’s Fair in Seattle with pieces composed in 1962, including Ligeti’s Poeme symphonique for 100 metronomes (!). This same program also celebrates the 100th birthday of John Cage with his Variations III. In February, Schoenberg gets the spotlight, with his Pierrot Lunaire plus chamber works by Jörg Widmann and Daniel Schnyder. And the final concert of the series features three world premieres by Seattle Symphony principals Ben Hausmann, Jordan Anderson, and Seth Krimsky, along with works by Anna Clyne and Chinary Ung.

2. The premiere of a John Luther Adams work called Beyond Ocean, which Seattle Symphony will then premiere at Carnegie Hall in 2014.

3. A repeat of Sonic Evolutions, the evening of classical music inspired by local non-classical musicians. This year, the non-classicals were Quincy Jones, Jimi Hendrix, and Nirvana. Next year, they’re Alice in Chains, Blue Scholars, and Yes (no, Yes is not local, but it does have a local connection). And symphony players will be joined by Star Anna and the Laughing Dogs.

By Michael Upchurch, Seattle Times arts writer
January 25, 2012

Seattle Symphony’s next season will feature first-time Symphony performances of Britten and Messiaen works, a world premiere of a John Luther Adams piece, guest appearances by Joshua Bell and Garrick Ohlsson, and a new late-night experimental-music series.

Just weeks before he took the helm as the Seattle Symphony’s music director last September, conductor Ludovic Morlot already had a notion of what he’d be doing in his 2012-13 season. “I ultimately want to go back and work on the classics,” he said. “I’ll do a lot of Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms with the orchestra, so that we start really working on the sound as well.”

Well, Mozart, Beethoven and the gang are all well represented in the newly announced season. But there are less expected items on the roster, too. Olivier Messiaen’s monumental Turangalila Symphony (with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet as soloist) and Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem will both get their first Seattle Symphony performances. Britten’s magnificent Cello Symphony — originally composed for Mstislav Rostropovich — is coming to Benaroya, too.

The season was announced following a free Symphony concert introduced by Mayor Mike McGinn at City Hall on Wednesday, which found Morlot sometimes levitating off the podium as he coaxed his players through the buoyant rhythmic trickery of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7. City Hall’s lobby was packed with youngsters and oldsters alike.

At a reception following the concert, Morlot addressed a question he’s frequently asked: Why does he sometimes conduct with a baton and sometimes with just his hands? “It’s very important to understand that the conductor doesn’t conduct with his hands, actually,” Morlot explained. “He conducts with his eyes and a burning heart. And if this is happening, ultimately having a baton or no baton, hands or not hands, makes no difference whatsoever.” Then he recalled the first conducting lesson he ever had, when he was asked to kick off the first movement of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony with both his hands in his pockets.

“So I sometimes try to remember that, and what the actual role of a conductor is, which is creating that environment where all those wonderful players can give the best of themselves. Because ultimately they don’t need me to make great music. They don’t need any of us on the podium to make great music. They just need our energy and our focus, and us reminding them how good they are.”

The Symphony’s executive director Simon Woods noted that, with the Beethoven, listeners had been given “a little taste of the kind of electricity that’s going on right now between our incredible musicians and Ludovic.”

He added that the 2012-2013 season would make “a great commitment to accessibility and to opening the doors to new audiences. … You might like to know we have 1,000 more subscribers than we had this time last year.”

He also enthused about the hundreds of families who come with their children to the new Family Connections program, which grants free admission to youngsters accompanied by a parent. Mentioned as well: the free Day of Music last September, which had 8,000 attendees, and the Arts & Education concerts which attracted 12,000 fifth-graders.

An upbeat Morlot hardly knew where to start in highlighting the coming season “because everything, in my taste, is really exciting.”

Among the changes he announced: Conducting fellow Stilian Kirov will take over as assistant conductor from Eric Garcia in September. And the Visiting Orchestras series has been put on hiatus.

“We used to have a tradition of having guest orchestras come from all around the world,” Morlot explained. “I want to change this for a little while, and I think it’s really important that we connect with the orchestras that are our neighbors in the Pacific Northwest. You’ll have the chance to hear the Vancouver Symphony and the Oregon Symphony here in Benaroya Hall. And I hope we can be invited back to those places, because it’s very important that we also nurture those relationships.”

The season opens with a concert and gala conducted by Morlot on Sept. 15, featuring violinist Joshua Bell in an all-American program (Gershwin, Copland and Bernstein). Morlot will conduct 10 of the 21 Wyckoff Masterworks Season programs, along with the Symphony’s returning Celebrate Asia concerts and “Sonic Evolution” concert, featuring an appearance by Star Anna and the Laughing Dogs. (“It’s a very important thing for us to connect to all the music that is being made in the city,” Morlot noted.)

He’ll also lead the Symphony through a two-night Rach Fest, in which four pianists take on Rachmaninov’s four piano concertos … presumably not at the same time.

Other highlights:

Morlot will conduct the world premiere of a John Luther Adams work in June 2013, and then take it with the Symphony to Carnegie Hall in May 2014.

He’ll also take an active hand in the Symphony’s Beyond the Score, Mainly Mozart and Symphony Untuxed offerings (the latter a renaming of the “Rush Hour” series “because,” says Morlot, “we want to be very casual and invite everybody to come as they are.”)

An experimental-music showcase, titled “[untitled],” may represent Morlot’s most unusual programming move, with its cutting-edge content, its 10 p.m. Friday showtime and its conversion of Benaroya Hall’s Grand Lobby into a musical venue. “We’ll have wonderful new music being performed there,” Morlot says, “so we can really connect to the city through that wonderful window.” He’s especially excited about a program called “1962,” that will mark the 50th anniversary of the Seattle World’s Fair with performance of music composed that year.)

Come the holidays, Morlot will take over baton duty on Beethoven’s 9th from conductor laureate Gerard Schwarz.

Clearly, we are going to be seeing a lot of Maestro Morlot.

Schwarz won’t be left empty-handed. He’s conducting a four-concert “Russian Spectacular” package, featuring works by Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich, plus a concert in the spring with Garrick Ohlsson as soloist in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9.

Some big-draw recitals — by pianists András Schiff and Yefim Bonfman and violinists Anne-Sophie Mutter and Itzhak Perlman — are on the calendar, as are visits from conductors of interest: John Adams, Neeme Järvi, Jakub Hrusa and Christian Knapp. Guest conductors making their Seattle Symphony debuts include Thomas Søndergård and Andrey Boreyko.

The Baroque & Wine series, a Symphony chamber series and an organ-recital series — all three concerts apiece — round out the musical offerings. On a nonmusical note, Bill Cosby will appear on Oct. 21.

“I think there’s something for everybody,” Morlot concluded, “and more than one thing for everybody.”

Posted by: Allison Williams on Seattle Met
Jan 25, 2012

The Seattle Symphony makes its announcements in style; conductor Ludovic Morlot lugged his whole group down to City Hall for a free concert this afternoon before releasing the 2012–2013 lineup. Fine, Ludo—we’re listening.

Morlot’s second season invites back some of the same big names that paid us a visit in his first; Joshua Bell, Itzhak Perlman, Emanuel Ax, and Hilary Hahn all return. But there’s new stuff, too, like revamped Rush Hour concerts—they’re now called Symphony Untuxed, and they’re followed by cocktail mingling with the musicians. Plus, there’s a new concertmaster, Alexander Velinzon, straight from the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Find the whole lineup here; book a subscription by March 3 to be entered into a contest for a free Alaskan cruise. Icebergs aside, here’s the big news from the new season:

• Joshua Bell is making an even bigger splash. The virtuoso violinist who rocked Benaroya a few weeks ago will return for the opening night gala on September 15, which features a program of George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, and Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.

• Sonic Evolution strikes again. Last year, brand-new compositions paid tribute to Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain; this year’s October 26 event will have new stuff inspired by Alice in Chains, Blue Scholars, and Yes.

• The Russians are coming. For two days in January, the symphony goes all Rachmaninov, all the time, playing his four piano concertos in Rach Fest. In May, Gerard Schwarz returns to conduct a Russian Spectacular series, featuring Tchaikovsky and a whole lot of Shostakovich (six pieces, to be exact). And don’t forget Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sheherazade, a haunting piece heard March 28–30.

• There’s a funky new sound in town. For the Turangalîla Symphony by Messiaen in January, soloist Cynthia Millar plays the ondes martenot. It’s a kind of proto-electrical instrument that uses vacuum tubes to create an eerie wail.

• Retro is in. The first of the Seattle Pops Series is the Cocktail Hour: Music from the Mad Men Era, with plenty of bossa nova; later Marvin Hamlisch conducts his own tunes from A Chorus Line and The Way We Were.

Symphony geeks should be satisfied, but will neophytes? Those who merely want to hear something they recognize—say, from a car commercial or a Bugs Bunny cartoon—can choose from mounds of blockbusters on the schedule: Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain, Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik, Rossini’s William Tell Overture, and Stravinsky’s The Firebird Suite

by Isabel Herzfeld, Der Tagesspiegel
January 20, 2012

Kann es von Beethovens Violinkonzert noch eine neue, überraschende Lesart geben? Ungezählte Aufführungen und Aufnahmen haben das Werk in die Ohren geradezu eingebrannt. Das Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin nahm es seit 1945 immerhin 14 Mal ins Programm; Frank Peter Zimmermann spielt jetzt in der Philharmonie die 15. Aufführung, seine dritte mit dem RSB. Doch mit Ludovic Morlot am Dirigentenpult ereignet sich ein kleines Wunder. Der 37-jährige Franzose prägt den ganzen Abend durch Finesse und Eleganz, was Wärme und Tiefe des Klangs nicht ausschließt. Schön, dass sich so im fließenden Tempo niemals Pathos und Gefühligkeit festsetzen kann – Beethoven leicht und sehr modern.

Zielstrebige Spannung treibt über Lyrisches hinweg, auch wenn der Solist im Larghetto zu schwebender Innigkeit findet. Das Finale blitzt vor Humor im musikalischen Ping-Pong- Spiel. Großer, mit einer Bach-Zugabe belohnter Jubel.

Morlot kann auch den etwas fade mäandernden Sinfonischen Fragmenten „Psyché“ von César Franck mit balancierter Klangsinnlichkeit auf die Sprünge helfen. Wirklich lohnend dagegen die Begegnung mit „Bacchus et Ariane“ von Albert Roussel, eine stringent strukturierte Ballettmusik, die 1930 die Errungenschaften von „Sacre“ und „Daphnis“ wohltuend verknappt Revue passieren lässt und sich Ausflüge aus der Tonalität gestattet. Die hochvirtuose Darbietung versöhnt mit der fremdelnden deutsch-französischen Stückekombination.

By Philippa Kiraly, Special to the Seattle Times
January 11, 2012

Violinist Joshua Bell played the Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1 with the Seattle Symphony Tuesday night in a special performance, and you’d have thought he was a rock star by the response.

When his performance ended, a sold-out Benaroya Hall erupted with whistles, catcalls, shouts and applause that brought the soloist back five times before he relented and gave an encore. Even then, the audience brought him back twice more before the tumult died down.

It was deserved. Bell, 44, has always been a violinist worth hearing, but he has never stopped maturing, deepening his understanding and interpretation of the music. He is a musician’s musician, equally able to reach the general public with the way he presents the work, a true pied piper and smart ambassador for the cause of classical music.

In his hands, one beautiful melody after another showed off Bruch’s compositional gift. Bell’s honeyed tone sang with depth and gave meaning to each phrase, one moment his runs skittering fast and light as a butterfly, while the next his playing sounded stately and sonorous.

For the encore, he played a movement from Ysaye’s unaccompanied Sonata No. 3. This work could be classed with those of Kreisler for technical fireworks and bravura, but in Bell’s hands one could hear all that and yet hear it as purely music. Bell never digs into his Stradivarius violin enough to make ugly scratches in pursuit of emphasis, yet there is ample fire and accent where needed.

The concert opened with Weber’s Overture to “Der Freischütz,” the same work that opened last week’s Masterworks Series of concerts. According to the orchestra’s executive director, Simon Woods, this was purely a rehearsal time decision, to use a work needing almost no preparation for a different audience. After a challenging program last week, the orchestra had little time to rehearse this concert, plus a Baroque concert Friday, plus Seattle Opera’s “Attila,” which opens this weekend.

Music director Ludovic Morlot’s interpretation of “Der Freischütz” was more classical and poetic, last week’s more dramatic and doom-laden under guest conductor David Robertson, and both worth hearing.

Mozart’s early Symphony No. 25 and another Weber work, the Overture to “Oberon,” both received performances of grace and elegance in the hands of Morlot. In the Bruch, Morlot was an exemplary conductor, keeping the orchestra closely with the soloist, never overshadowing him and always in tune with Bell’s interpretation.

Mark Swed,The Los Angeles Times
December 11, 2011

The Boston Symphony Orchestra is the only major American orchestra with a home to acoustically rival Walt Disney Concert Hall. Still, the Brahmins brought more than Brahms with them Saturday night, when they made their first appearance in Disney and their much anticipated first return to Los Angeles in two decades. They carried their own quaint podium from Symphony Hall in Boston. Perhaps the orchestra felt a talisman was needed for its short California tour, which began Tuesday in San Francisco with two programs and ended in Los Angeles with a single one.

When originally announced early in the year, James Levine was to have conducted. But ill health forced his resignation as BSO music director in the spring, and the orchestra arrived here on a day of discouraging news. Having suffered a debilitating fall in September, Levine has now announced the cancellation of all engagements for the next 18 months.

Levine’s replacement for the tour was Ludovic Morlot, a former assistant conductor of the BSO who got plenty of practice filling in for canceled Levine dates. Morlot is now the new music director of the Seattle Symphony. He’s French, 37, has a snappy style and a strong sense of the sophisticated and lively Boston sound. Reports from Seattle are that he is rejuvenating the city’s musical life. This made those reports credible.

Even so, Levine’s shadow loomed large over the BSO tour in the programming. In Boston, he advocated big time for the American composers he admires, including Elliott Carter and John Harbison. Unfortunately, Carter’s recent Flute Concerto, which was played in San Francisco on Tuesday, wasn’t heard Saturday –- the day before the still-composing Carter’s 103rd birthday. Instead, Brahms’ Violin Concerto, with Gil Shaham as soloist, opened the program. Harbison’s Fourth Symphony, however, happily made the Disney cut.

Under Morlot, the BSO sounded mellow and delectable, which has been a characteristic it has maintained under any number of different types of music director over the years. This is also a very American orchestra, long a champion of new and American music. In fact, Serge Koussevitzky’s 1939 BSO recording of Roy Harris’ Third Symphony is the only classical inductee for 2012 in the Grammy Hall of Fame.

What Levine brought to Boston was a sumptuousness of texture, a fullness that was, if not new (Leonard Bernstein got a very sexy sound from this refined orchestra as well), certainly remarkable. That kind of intensity is what the Brahms concerto needed. The orchestra was creamy, and Shaham, his tone pure honey, had the violin solo passages slipping and sliding through all that Bostonian smoothness. But the lack of weight made the concerto feel like a musical oyster slithering down the throat with no beer to wash it down.

After intermission, Harbison’s symphony and Ravel’s “Daphnis and Chloé” Suite No. 2 better showed just what a splendid ensemble this is. Harbison wrote his Fourth, which is dated 2003, directly after his opera, “The Great Gatsby.” A rhythmically spicy first of five movements begins in the jazz-remembered age where “Gatsby” left off. In an Intermezzo that follows, mellow metal and wood percussion begin a new journey. The deepest movement is a Threnody, which begins with sentimental strings but soon achieves a suitably tortured nature. The Finale returns to the “Gatsby”-ish opening — transformed, Harbison wrote in a program note, into something “somewhat callous.”

It is a satisfying symphony. Harbison doesn’t let old forms (there are hints even of waltz and march) work in old ways. The makeovers are subtle and disconcerting. What makes Harbison’s music moving is that familiar ground is not necessarily stable ground.

Morlot conducted a crack performance. The BSO’s long intimacy with Stravinsky (it gave the U.S. premiere of “Rite of Spring” and commissioned “Symphony of Psalms”), Bartók (it commissioned the Concerto for Orchestra), Copland and Bernstein was evident in a crisp yet colorful alertness that signaled not just professionalism but also a sense that this is music that means something.

The “Daphnis” suite dazzled. The winds, chirping like birds and providing the splashing sounds of nymphs in frolic, were extraordinary. The suave strings were more French than the French. The Boston brass presented a magical power of boldness in containment.

Levine, who recorded the complete Ravel ballet with the BSO, went for something heady and orgiastic. Morlot didn’t go there, seeming content with sparkle and sizzle. It’s a tradeoff, if an impressive and honest one.

The encore was Berlioz’s “Roman Carnival” Overture, played with all the winning verve in the world. But it was the wrong encore. This was the perfect time for one of the orchestra’s Carter specialties — say the three-minute “A Celebration of Some 100 x 150 Notes” — two hours before a historic American birthday barely noticed outside New York and Boston.