“There were so many cars at Wolf Trap on Friday night that I briefly wondered whether I had come to the wrong concert,” writes Anne Midgette in Sunday’s (7/28) Washington Post. “But it was indeed the National Symphony Orchestra … playing with its own music director, Gianandrea Noseda, to boot…. It’s hard to tell what draws audiences to a particular event—Noseda’s presence; Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony … but something, at least, got people out in force. And they got a good show. Noseda loves to perform in different venues, and he has a knack for communication. He picked up the microphone and said a few words about how excited he was to be there for the first time…. And then he turned around, picked up the baton and sounded as if he really meant it. The program consisted of Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto and the Beethoven symphony…. The musicians brought such verve to it…. Noseda has a particular way with Beethoven: fresh and helium-light and so fleet…. He and the orchestra will be performing and recording the complete symphonies at the end of the upcoming season, their contribution to 2020’s 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth.”
Posted August 2, 2019
