Saludos de Madrid: Cincinnati Symphony Finale in Madrid

Saludos de Madrid!

The CSO certainly ended their 15-day, 12-city tour with a marvelous performance.  This concert at the Auditorio Nacional de la Musica in Madrid had been sold out for months, even though it started at 10:30 PM (and ended a little before 1:00 AM!), and there was even some ticket-scalping going on outside!  Another concert took place in the hall just before ours, with Leonard Slatkin and Lang Lang.  I wonder if anyone attended both concerts?
 
I prefer the older halls, but even though this one is very contemporary and angular, it projects a great deal of warmth in the lighting and the seatiing arrangement, which surrounds the orchestra.  This tour had to be grueling, but it didn't show in the musicians´ playing.  The overture to the "Marriage of Figaro" was just as fresh and lovely as at the beginning of the tour.  Janine Jansen thrilled the audience with her performance of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto--what I like so much about her is that her playing is so intense, yet so organic, it seems to flow from deep inside her.  And her admiration for the CSO is so apparent and so genuine.  And last, and most important, the Schubert 9 -- I don´t know if it was the hall, or where I was sitting, or that my hearing was better now that I'm well, but I heard details I'd never heard before.  Or maybe it was the "tour effect" that Ive heard so much about -- the inevitable refinement that is the result of performing the same work several times in a short space of time.  There definitely seemed to me to be a polish and patina that took the music to a higher level, even though I've loved all four times I've heard the CSO play this symphony is the last five weeks.  It brought tears to my eyes to think it would be long time before I would hear them play this again.  The audience was very appreciative, and there was lengthy applause with several bravos.  A few people had started out of the hall, I think due to the late (early?) hour, but stopped in their tracks when the orchestra gave their encore of the Brahms Hungarian Dance No. 5, which brought this highly successful tour to a jaunty and joyful close.

Bravo to the CSO!

Dava