Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra - Friday February 5, 2010 - Manfred Honeck, Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin

While what will undoubtedly be known as the Great Blizzard of 2010 relentlessly fell upon the city, all was not serene within Heinz Hall. Well, there were some serene moments but those provided brief moments of respite amidst the rest. It was a simple program featuring just two pieces, both warhorses in these parts and probably elsewhere. The Brahms Violin Concerto is perennially (and this has been true for over fifty years) the most performed violin concerto in major American concert halls. The Mahler First Symphony has a great deal of competition but must rank fairly high on the list of most performed symphonies in the last thirty years at least. It definitely is the most performed piece by the pairing of Manfred Honeck and the PSO. He choose it for his first official concert here as music director in September 2008. I was there at that show and was interested to hear it again. I don't remember having had a chance to hear the same piece twice by the same conductor and orchestra over just a 17 month period. In the meantime, the orchestra played in on tour just last September.

Anne-Sophie Mutter is certainly one of the great ones of her generation. The only other violinist in their forties of comparable stature (she is 46) is Joshua Bell. While he IS a great violinist, my money is on Anne-Sophie. Her advocacy for contemporary composers is quite amazing. Lutoslawski, Rihm, Moret, Penderecki, Previn, Gubaidulina and Duteleux have all written pieces for her. However, on this occasion, she is advocating for Brahms. She played it with great flair. For example, she waited until the last possible moment to bring her violin under her chin for the entrance. That seemed to be a way of conveying a certain attitude. Her attacks had a lot of bite and I believe that works well in this piece. She worked well with the orchestra in this most symphonic of concertos. The long first movement came together and stayed together beautifully. The second movement had the sweetness needed to give respite between the intensity for the outer movements. The Oboe solo by Cynthia DeAlmeida was extraordinary. I am told she did it without a pause for a breath. While that is impressive, it only matters if the end result is as beautiful as it was on Friday. The finale was energetic, joyful, exiting. I do love Brahms music and generally feel that you can hear how carefully crafted it is. I believe that means he leaves out joyful exuberance in his music. I do hear it a few places: the end of the first symphony; the last movement of the First Piano Quartet; and of course in the finale to the Violin Concerto. That came through quite well in this performance.

Anne-Sophie did treat us to an encore as well and of course, it was Bach again. Not that I am complaining. She did NOT do the preludio from the Third Partita. She choose to follow exuberance with the quiet reserved Sarabande from the First Partita.

I have heard the Mahler First Symphony here in Pittsburgh many times over the last 29 years. I still have a special place in my heart for Zdenek Macal's version sometime in the early to mid Eighties. As I nted above, the PSO have already done it many times with Manfred Honeck. It is interesting that he wanted to work on it a bit more before taking it to New York. Going by my memory of the performance in September 2008 (which I loved, by the way), I felt like he was letting the orchestra loose a bit more (and maybe himself too). Like the last three weeks, he and the orchestra seem to be working well together. I was thinking about how clear his beat is and how enjoyable it is to watch his left hand as it is quite expressive. All of the wonderful oddness of the piece came through - the klezmer clarinet bit, the children's tune Frere Jacques (or Are You Sleeping, Brother John in this country) as a funeral dirge, the finale that seems endless until the horns stand for their final blow. This all seemed just a bit more unhinged, in a good way. Honeck's big signal for the last chord showed his exuberance. It also showed they were ready for the Big Apple.

The crowd was surprisingly large given the aforementioned blizzard. And the crowd went wild for both pieces, though bigger for the Mahler even than the Brahms.