Disagreeing with Parisian Audiences! - Saturday, 26 October

I was so excited about seeing and hearing Leonidas Kavakos play the Brahms Double Concerto for Violin and Cello with Enrico Dindo (Cello), Riccardo Chailly and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig at the Salle Pleyel tonight.  And the Brahms Symphony No. 1.  It's part of a week-long Brahms festival with all four symphonies and various soloists on concertos.  And bonus: I got to attend the concert with a couple fabulous violinists (Liz & Michal Sobieski) with whom I could compare notes.

The view from my seat

Diasppointment #1: discovering the little insert in the program announcing that Kavakos was sick and would be replaced by Julian Rachlin in the double concerto.  Rachlin is a 38-year-old violinist and violist born in Lithuania who studied in Vienna.  He was OK but certainly no Kavakos.  And the cellist was quite a bit stronger, so the concerto felt a little off-kilter.  Kudos to Rachlin for stepping in like this, of course, but it was still a letdown.

Disappointment #2: the performance of the Brahms Symphony No. 1 was the weakest I can remember hearing in a live concert of a professional orchestra.  Sigh.  Liz & Michal & I were focusing on different things, and we disagreed somewhat in our assessment of the performance.  It's one of the really great symphonies of all time of course, and it's always a pleasure to hear a live performance of it, but (silly me!) I was expecting something more like the kind of performance I would hear from the MN Orchestra.  Instead, entrances were choppy, solo lines were kind of plopped down rather than integrated with what came before and after, the brilliant giant lines and phrases of this symphony felt like they were cut short, the horns way over-blowed some of their passages (especially the horn calls at the beginning of the 4th movement), the rest of the winds sounded like a bunch of soloists instead of an ensemble, and the orchestra didn't seem to be following Chailly at times.

Another view from my seat

In general, the performance sounded athletic and abrupt rather than lush.  But maybe that's a German performance style? Or a new trend in interpretation? (If you know, shoot me a note!) Or maybe I'm just old and stuffy and sentimental. I can tell you that the crowd (a full house) disagreed with me - they went absolutely wild! They bravo'd and clapped rhythmically and received multiple bows by conductor and sections and sectional soloists and even got an encore (a Brahms Hungarian Dance). So classical music (including the old war horses) is alive and demanded in Paris.

The good news is that I'm even move excited that I'll be able to hear Brahms' 2nd Symphony on November 14 & 15, performed by the mighty Musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra under the baton of the GREAT Stanislaw Skrowaczewski!  http://www.minnesotaorchestramusicians.org/skrowaczewski-artymiw-november-14-15/

The first patrons at Cafe Pleyel

And the other good news is that Salle Pleyel has a little cafe integrated into the 2nd floor lobbies where they serve a decent 30 euro prix fixe pre-concert dinner.  If you have a ticket for the concert, they let you in the doors early.  Liz & Michal & I were the first ones there at around 6:30!