Kreizberg, Fischer Dazzle

There were 69 students from Wyoming Middle School at Friday morning's Cincinnati Symphony concert at Music Hall. They came to hear violinist Julia Fischer, 23, make her CSO debut. They were not disappointed.
   Fischer's performance of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto under guest conductor Yakov Kreizberg was uncommonly fine. Her satin tone, agility and tastefully emotive playing projected to every corner of the hall. She could change affect on a dime, from soulful and soft to rich and gutsy, without a touch of heaviness.
   Her collaboration with Kreizberg was superb. The two have made some notable recordings together and the empathy showed. Conducting from memory, Kreizberg watched her like a hawk and their interaction was seamless and filled with current.
   It's a shame that the students had to return to class, for the second half of the program was a virtual history lesson. Shostakovich's Symphony No. 11, "The Year 1905," is a programmatic retelling of one of the catalytic events of the Russian Revolution, "Bloody Sunday," when a peaceful demonstration against Czar Nicholas II led to the slaughter of hundreds of unarmed citizens.
   The concert was historic in other ways, too. It was the CSO premiere of the work, and though written to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, it is now thought to have been additionally inspired by the 1956 Hungarian Revolt. Even CSO violist Joseph Somogyi, a native of Hungary and a student in Budapest when Soviet tanks rolled in to quell the uprising, said he was "totally surprised" by the connection.
   Somogyi wasn't the only one surprised by the work, which ends triple forte in a convulsion of bells and drums. "Stunned" would be a better word as Kreizberg lowered his arms following Patrick Schleker's final drum beat. Perhaps the audience wasn't sure it was over, but there was silence, followed by a smattering of applause. Reception welled up as they finally "got it" and stood to express their approval.
   It was a magnificent performance. Russian-born Kreizberg, 47, chief conductor of the Netherlands Philharmonic, led the hour-long symphony from memory. A product of the Leningrad School of conducting, whose exponents include Neeme Jarvi, father of CSO music director Paavo Jarvi, Kreizberg exhibited crystal clarity and a wide vocabulary of expressive gestures. That he commanded the CSO's total attention and respect was certified by inspired playing. The musicians, urged to their feet by Kreizberg, refused to stand at the end, thereby according him a solo bow.
   In four connected movements, each with a descriptive title, the symphony could have been the score for an epic Russian film. Woven into it are Russian revolutionary songs, clothed in vivid technicolor gestures. The opening "Palace Square," a snow-clad vista of the square outside the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, takes an added chill from a plaintive Russian prisoners' song, first hinted by principal timpanist Schleker.
   The second movement, "The 9th of January," told the story of "Bloody Sunday" with stealth and fury. The gentle opening theme (a bit like "Hedwig" from "Harry Potter" upside down) bespoke peace, broken suddenly by a hail of snare drum "bullets," a furious fugue and a barrage of percussion. Just as suddenly, the music tumbled back from whence it came, Doug Lindsay's mournful trumpet sounding over eerie trills in the strings.
   "In Memoriam" spotlighted the violas in a desolate, vibrato-less theme (an actual song sung at Lenin's funeral). The final movement, "The Tocsin" (alarm bell), re-asserted the people's resistance with varied repetitions of "Rage, tyrants," a march-like, muscular anthem that gave way to one last "Palace Square" quotation and an aching lament, rendered exquisitely by English hornist Christopher Philpotts. The last raucous bars required all five (!) percussionists, with Richard Jensen on tuned church bells.
   The concert opened with a brisk reading of Glinka's Overture to "Russlan and Ludmilla." The CSO seemed a little off balance here, as if Kreizberg had kicked them out the nest like a baby bird and said "fly."
   Repeat is 8 tonight at Music Hall. For valuable background, hear CSO assistant conductor Tito Munoz' pre-concert talk at 7 p.m.
(first published in The Cincinnati Post Feb. 10, 2007)