Music review: Riccardo Chailly and the world's oldest orchestra at Disney Hall

The sunny Italian conductor Riccardo Chailly has a knack for landing where you’d least expect him and making a go of it. He is music director of what used to seem the eternally starchy Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. They began a U.S. tour with a Beethoven date in the Walt Disney Concert Hall on Wednesday night. This German orchestra, the world’s oldest, is starchy no more.

Just how old is the Leipzig ensemble, which takes its name from its concert hall, the Gewandhaus? Mendelssohn became its music director in 1835 and was on hand to celebrate the band’s 100th anniversary in 1843. Another way to look at it is to note that in 1835, Leipzig’s orchestra was one year older than the Los Angeles Philharmonic is today.

Chailly, who turns 57 Saturday, has an interesting background. From a distinguished Italian musical family, he spent part of a rebellious Beatles-besotted boyhood in Milan as a rock drummer. A quarter century ago, he made his L.A. Philharmonic debut hailed as the next hot young conductor. He was not invited back.

In 1988, at 35 and best known for conducting opera and championing contemporary music, he was appointed music director of Amsterdam’s fabled Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, where the public happened to be antagonistic to Latin flash and anything very modern. Over the next 16 years, however, he made the Concertgebouw a far more relevant institution to the vibrant Amsterdam cultural scene.

After Amsterdam, America seemed an obvious next step for Chailly, and he was briefly courted by New York, Chicago and Philadelphia. But he wound up instead in the town where Bach had lived and at the epicenter of German musical culture. His immediate predecessors were the traditionalists Kurt Masur and Herbert Blomstedt.

On the surface, the Leipzig Chailly is something of a classicist himself. He has made highly regarded recordings of Brahms, Schumann and Mendelssohn with the Gewandhaus, and he has now turned to Bach. A rippingly good recording of the Brandenburg Concertos has just been released, and the St. Matthew Passion is up next.  

His tour programs are about as conventional as can be imagined. At Disney, Chailly offered Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto, the “Emperor,” which the Gewandhaus premiered in Leipzig in 1809, and Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. Friday at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa, he will turn to Mendelssohn and Dvorák.

But I am happy to report that Wednesday there was still a hint of the old Ringo in the Old World Chailly. A stately German orchestra the Gewandhaus may be, but young musicians appear to outnumber old ones and there are now many women. A burnished, blended sound could be credited to the orchestra’s DNA, but so could a Mendelssohnian sparkle. And orchestral DNA is metaphor, anyway, not science. The sound can be changed. No one would mistake this for a bright-toned American orchestra, but Chailly goes for punch, and he gets it.

The soloist was to have been the idiosyncratic Brazilian pianist Nelson Freire, with whom Chailly and the Gewandhaus have made splendid recordings of the Brahms concertos. Indisposed, he was replaced by Louis Lortie, a Canadian with a dazzlingly technique and a flair for Liszt. Lortie is a slight man whose large hands appeared to grow as he played.
 
The “Emperor” was big and bright. Chailly knocked out accents as though he were merrily shooting ducks at a carnival booth, and he made sure momentum never lagged. But he also made space for Lortie’s pianistic sparks to fly. This was pianism in the percussive, grandly virtuosic tradition. Everything was clear, vivid, brilliant.

Lortie returned for an encore -- the last movement of Beethoven’s “Les Adieux” piano sonata, which shares the cloudless key of E-flat with the “Emperor” -- and fingers flew.

The Beethoven Seventh is ever in vogue for its rhythmic verve, and Chailly’s performance was drum-driven. He beat out the Beethovenian tattoos of the outer movements enthusiastically. He made the timpanist the star. The playing was the not tidiest in all orchestra-land, but the sound was robust, instrumental colors were nuanced and the gusto was great.

For an encore, Chailly told the audience you can never play too much Beethoven and offered a delightfully impish reading of the “Prometheus” Overture, in which he sneaked in a Rossini crescendo. It’s a good thing the musical Stassi no longer prowl the concert halls in Leipzig.

-- Mark Swed

The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra,  Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. 8 p.m. Friday; $40-$250. (949) 553-2422 or www.philharmonicsociety.org

Photo: (top) Riccardo Chailly conducts the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra at Walt Disney Concert Hall Wedneday night; (below) pianist Louis Lortie. Credit: Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times.
 

Comments

[anon]

It seems as if Mr. Swed gave the orchestra's special sound somewhat short shrift: This orchestra has a sound unlike any other, and while Chailly definitely brings out a more obvious virtuosity in the ensemble, the sound of this orchestra was the thing Wednesday: like looking at old gold..the sound deep and colorful, very different from Berlin, but equally enthralling, I didn't want them to stop playing..it's a sound that makes a person want to move to Leipzig, just so you could hear them every week.

Just one detail: the contrast of winds and strings, so important in 18th and 19th century music, a contrast increasingly blurred in our time, was wonderfully on display wednesday night..the wind section of that orchestra is really fine.

One of the best orchestras on the planet, without a doubt, and with a unique timbre that's welcome in this age of ever-increasingly homogenized orchestral sound. For once, it's nice to hear an orchestra that doesn't sound so..American.

[President -- Fullerton Friends of Music]

@anon.

Thanks for the commentary; totally agree that some of the European orchestras (Leipzig Gewandhaus and Dresden Staatskapelle from personal concert experiences) have a burnished quality to their strings.

The Leipzig Gewandhaus and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestras have incredibly virtuosic winds instruments with truly unique sound.

Regretably, I could not make the Disney Hall event, but will look forward to the Segerstram Hall event with Nicolaj Znaider, an outstanding choice for soloist in the Mendelssohn Concerto this evening.

They have also had an incredible recent legacy of great musical direction, Kurt Masur, Herbert Blomstedt, and now, Riccardo Chailly.

Solid musical ensemble directed by equally solid conductors.

Look forward to this evening's concert experience.

[Wolfy]

the Leipzig winds were truly outstanding... but that seems to be a given with all the visiting European orchestras. American orchestras, except probably the San Francisco Opera Orchestra woodwinds, just don't get it.
I can still recall vividly the thrill of hearing the Concertgebeouw oboe playing Strauss' Don Juan love theme -- it was unforgettable.

I did not care for the replacement pianist Louis Lortie's rough hued, edgy playing and preferred more legato to braggadocio

[anon]

This concert was a real treat!

I agree with the other comment that I did not want them to stop playing. The symphony felt like it was over in 10 minutes - not 35. In my seating section, we wanted them to play the whole symphony again as the encore.

The concerto was masterfully performed, and it was great to hear a pianist and conductor have the same interpretation of the concerto being presented! I will never forget the second movement, especially when Lortie playing the trill passages was perfectly balanced to the orchestra.

The were only minor things - Lortie used at times too much pedal in some places, and none at all where it was necessary in others. This sometimes meant he was muddy in runs with pedal on, but lost the impact of the phrase when no pedal was used. His opening speed in the third movement seemed way to fast - but he quickly won me over.

As far as the symphony - it seemed to take a while for the orchestra to settle in. Perhaps it was jet lag, but the opening of the first movement seemed off in the Poco sostenuto, especially right before the Vivace. It did not sound right.

However, as the symphony progressed, moment by moment it grew in the listener to the point where even though I know the work, I was still surprised. The last two movements were spectacular - it was where you really felt the music in three dimensions - it was more than sound, it was tangible!

Can they come every year?????

[From Red Gulch]

I agree with all three of my fellow commentators. The sound of the Gewandhaus was indeed a welcome change from the often-bland LA Phil. (But maybe I am spoiled??) It really made my heart sing to hear such beautiful wind playing during the Seventh, deep, burnished strings cutting through the Disney Hall acoustic like an old sword, and the orchestral blend mixing together brilliantly. I will not forget Wednesday night for a long time. Lortie on the other hand...was no Nelson Freire. Not bad, but unremarkable.

[anon]

@ wolfy...note that the Beethoven Emperor is a piece DEFINED by its braggadocio! It's supposed to swagger. I thought Lortie's performance was nearly beyond praise: aggressively virtuosic when it should be. Witty when it should be. Lyrical and delicate when it should be. There was no lack of legato playing here, it was just used where it was supposed to be used.

Too many pianists blow through this piece without bringing out the sheer virtuosity (for its time) of it. Lortie managed to make the piece sound fresh, and new. I really liked what he did, and I expect Beethoven would have too.

[Cate]

"musical Stassi"

Sorry to be lurking here as the spelling and grammar police, but I think you meant "Stasi"?

[Wolfy]

if you want to hear the Emperor Concerto played with equal measures of aristocratic legato AND barnstorming braggadocio, listen to Claudio Arrau. Lortie's playing was too rough-edged and earthbound for my taste. I can still hear the Leipzig winds in my head -- just wonderful!

L.A. Phil bores me now.

[jdae]

Mark Swed is mistaken in calling the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra the world's oldest. While it may be older than any American orchestra, the Gewandhaus is not even a close contender to that title. Among the orchestras still playing today, both the Royal Court Orchestra (Kungliga Hovkapellet) in Stockholm and the Saxon State Orchestra (Sächsische Staatskapelle) in Dresden are significantly older. The former is first documented in 1526 (and may be even older); the latter was founded in 1548.