Valencia Orchestra Christmas Concert 2023 – Frank Peter Zimmermann, Isabelle Faust, and Luisa Domingo Highlight Performances

VALENCIA. We would fall short if we defined the “Christmas” program offered by the Valencia Orchestra as unorthodox. Program, which in the end, turned out to be an unmitigated success and which has served for the group to bid farewell to this important year 2023 along with its audience, which, once it must be noted, has meant the happy return to the Palau where we Memorable evenings await in the coming years.

The Palau de la Música and the Valencia Orchestra have the honor of having been the ones who, in 1997, with the excellent violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann and the baton of Jan Latham-Koenig, premiered in Spain a masterpiece such as the Concert of Ligeti violin, just four years after Pierre Boulez starred in the absolute premiere. On this occasion the soloist was the magnificent German violinist Isabelle Faust, with an overwhelming reading, which, despite not being an easy work for the majority of the audience, at the end of the concert, will reward everyone with a standing ovation. Therefore, the most sincere congratulations for a brave, transparent and precise version in which the soloists were up to the task in their committed interventions of which this work is full of. Once again Liebreich showed his excellent abilities in this repertoire, not limiting himself to arranging music that continually metamorphoses but also allowing himself the “luxury” of shaping the sound dynamically from forte to pianissimo. The musicians were not intimidated and showed their great value in a work so exposed to everyone. Faust dominates the intricate Ligetian building with insulting solvency, culminating in a final cadence of his own, truly dazzling in its imaginativeness. As a curiosity, he plays a Stradivarius called “The Sleeping Beauty of the Forest.”

Next, without a break in between, the contrast with what was heard came from the hand of a selection from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker in which Liebreich wanted to bring out the aristocratic character of this music, which was already perceived in the initial March full of containment and elegance. Memorable Luisa Domingo on the harp in the introduction Waltz of the flowers as well as magnificent the three flutes in the Dance of the Mirlitons and the celesta in the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

One of the virtues of the orchestra’s chief conductor, who day by day seems more comfortable and complicit with his musicians, is his versatility because, in addition to his excellence with the music of the 20th and 21st centuries, his readings of the classical repertoire, with notable Haydn or Mozart deserve all the congratulations. With this, the orchestra is fortunate to work with a “broad-spectrum” maestro in order to tackle the most varied repertoires with full guarantees. This, after a first part whose two programmed works could not be found in more diverse worlds, with a second occupied by a symphony from the great repertoire such as Brahms’ second with the demands of ensemble and interpretation that this music demands.

The concert closed with the aforementioned Brahmsian symphony known as his “pastoral”, with which we can conclude that, at least in this “Liebreich stage”, after having already offered the first and now the second symphony of the Hamburg composer, after a long period With too many hesitations, the orchestra can face a symphonic catalogue, that of Brahms, which had resisted it with some somewhat disappointing readings. Liebreich proposes a symphony with enormous internal coherence through the relationship of some motifs with others and relating the different voices that emerge throughout the score. He vehemently requested, on many occasions, intensity from the different string families and the musicians responded without hesitation, enjoying this great music. We will highlight the wind among which we will mention the oboe of Jose Teruel in the third movement, the flute Salvador Martínez. throughout the work. We cannot forget all the metal in a participation that requires control and always remaining within the global sound, and not an exhibition of power, or the timpani of Javier Eguillor in a coda of great brilliance and emotional intensity. Great and well-deserved applause from a room practically full to its capacity.

2023-12-24 05:40:24
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