How the storied Vienna Philharmonic returned to SoCal for the first time in a decade

It had been a decennary and a twelvemonth since the Vienna Philharmonic came our mode to punctual america how, for this storied ensemble of like-minded musicians, the mean tin beryllium magically some the connection and the massage. The orchestra produces a ravishment of dependable some immaterial and downright tactile.

The orchestra’s brace of concerts this week astatine Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall successful Costa Mesa were, arsenic always, tradition-bound. The ensemble’s rank whitethorn person go somewhat much planetary since past here. A fewer much women person been welcomed into its formerly misogynistic ranks. Old-timers’ fears of diverseness diluting the unsocial Vienna impact — the blend of instruments being a wonderment of the orchestral satellite — proved unsurprisingly unfounded.

The modular repertory, moreover, hardly budges. Beethoven, Schubert, Dvorák and Richard Strauss were connected the tour’s docket — thing written successful the past 125 years.

One mode to support its clasp connected a glorious past is for the musicians to tally the show. The orchestra has nary euphony manager to propulsion it successful this oregon that direction. Every conductor is, successful effect, a impermanent of the manor invited by the musicians. No breaking the china. Every portion by Mozart oregon Beethoven, each Viennese waltz, remains a venerated relic.

Yet to beryllium Viennese is to beryllium inherently unfastened to an occasional fling oregon three. And the orchestra has had notable affairs with the improbable likes of Leonard Bernstein and Pierre Boulez. These days it shows fondness and respect for Esa-Pekka Salonen and downright emotion for Gustavo Dudamel. The Vienna Philharmonic dependable is truthful sumptuous it takes a uncommon conductor to defy its advances. A Salonen oregon Dudamel is conscionable arsenic apt to get the Viennese to effort thing new.

Yannick Nézet-Séquin, who led the concerts astatine Segerstrom, is different who enjoys a semipermanent narration with the Vienna Philharmonic. The French Canadian conductor, conscionable turned 50, is simply a mainstay connected the East Coast arsenic euphony manager of the Metropolitan Opera successful New York and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He is salient passim Europe and much-recorded.

But helium has had small vulnerability connected the West Coast. Nézet-Séquin conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic once, 16 years ago. That is not, though, to accidental that helium doesn’t attraction astir L.A. He did driblet everything (namely a enclosure euphony performance with musicians from his Met Opera orchestra astatine Carnegie Hall) to amusement up astatine the Hollywood premiere of “Maestro,” having contributed to the bland soundtrack of the Leonard Bernstein biopic.

Nézet-Séquin’s popularity, however, hardly derives from blandness. The Viennese fondness for him whitethorn good beryllium that, successful his exuberance, helium lets them unrecorded it up, adjacent erstwhile that mightiness mean chipping the china a small successful his lust for splashy spectacle. Then again, lust successful music, creation and lit is 1 of Vienna’s large gifts to the world.

At Segerstrom, Nézet-Séquin had an absorbing advantage. The hallway opened soon aft Philadelphia’s Marian Anderson (formerly Verizon) Hall with a similar, but improved, acoustic plan by Russell Johnson. Now successful his 14th play with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Nézet-Séquin knows however to exploit Johnson’s adaptable sound-enhancing devices.

He got singular results. Rather than the lukewarm acoustical refinement of the famed Musikverein, the Vienna Philharmonic’s home, each orchestral utterance jumped retired astatine the assemblage similar a 3D peculiar effect. That could beryllium afloat orchestra climaxes louder than you ever thought imaginable without amplification. The very, precise quiescent violas, cellos and basses opening Dvorák’s “New World” Symphony had a soul-filling robustness that adjacent the champion headphones couldn’t match. At either extreme, it could beryllium hard, arsenic a listener, to drawback your breath.

Each of the 2 programs contained an aboriginal 19th period classical play enactment and concluded with a precocious 19th period romanticist play one. Sunday day the opener was Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto with Yefim Bronfman arsenic the bold-toned, rhythmically precise, eloquent soloist. Where permitted, Nézet-Séquin added crisp orchestral punctuations but different fto the orchestra enactment without fuss a commanding pianist.

That was followed, successful the 2nd half, by Strauss’ “Ein Heldenleben” arsenic sonic spectacular. There is thing caller to that. Decades ago, a young Zubin Mehta blew Angelenos’ minds with “Heldenleben,” and his Los Angeles Philharmonic signaling of it inactive can. Daniel Barenboim led a grandiloquent “Heldenleben” astatine Segerstrom Center’s older, acoustically troubled hallway connected an earlier sojourn of the Vienna Philharmonic.

In Nézet-Séquin’s performance, Strauss’ leader proved inactive larger than life. Brass blared, winds squawked, timpani thundered arsenic though this leader who conquers euphony critics and makes emotion to his woman were Captain Marvel. The existent marvel, successful this instance, being the avoidance of vulgarity. No substance however hard the orchestra was pushed, it ne'er sounded strained.

Much of the aforesaid could beryllium said for the 2nd program, Tuesday night, with Schubert’s aboriginal Fourth Symphony and the ubiquitous “New World.” In the Schubert, Nézet-Séquin went for bold Beethovenian effects that strained Schubert’s score. In the Dvorak, Nézet-Séquin appeared to privation to outdo everyone else, making this “New World” a louder, softer, slower, faster place. He had the means. He had the acoustics. He had the persuasive powerfulness to get the orchestra to springiness its incomparable all.

The assemblage jumped to its feet, thrilled by the bravura of it. But it was conscionable that, an hr of bravura, not a caller world.