“Reception in Europe isn’t like the weather. It isn’t predictable. Still, if the Cleveland Orchestra on tour there this month plays anything like it did last weekend at home with music director Franz Welser-Most, it’s safe to assume the group will be greeted quite warmly,” writes Zachary Lewis in Tuesday’s (9/2) Plain Dealer (Cleveland). The orchestra’s September 7-22 tour encompasses performances in England, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands. “Friday’s account of [Brahms’s] Symphony No. 1 at Severance Hall left a mixed impression but Sunday’s performances of Symphonies Nos. 3 and 4 at Blossom Music Center were glorious, fully worthy of the fireworks that followed…. Symphony No. 1 was an attention-getter, a piece to get people talking,” with a finale “marked by resplendent horns and a sense of triumphant release. Symphony No. 3, by contrast, was perfectly measured and spacious…. [Jorg Widmann’s] 2008 overture [Con Brio] is lively, interesting, and to-the-point, and Sunday’s performance, featuring percussionist Tom Freer, was a boisterous delight. All this and more is now headed to Europe. How listeners will react remains to be seen. That the orchestra has a few aces up its sleeve, however, is now far beyond question.”
Posted September 3, 2014
