For the first time in its 66-year history, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra played “Waltz King” Johann Strauss Jr.’s “On the Beautiful Blue Danube” for a subscription concert. It opened a program Thursday night in Symphony Hall, an evening of music from old Vienna that was entirely familiar but deceptively difficult.
A great orchestral waltz performance should ideally float on air. Led by principal guest conductor Donald Runnicles, making his first ASO appearance of the season, the “Blue Danube” waltz started out earthbound and a little clompy, as if work boots hadn’t been replaced by thin-soled dancing slippers.
The moves were right and the spirit was properly balanced between optimistic and nostalgic. Yet the lilting three-beat patterns were decidedly foursquare. It was a reminder that specialty repertoire, like Strauss waltzes, require tremendous effort to sound effortless.
Like speaking a foreign language, there’s vocabulary to learn as well as an accent to master and there’s a reason the Vienna Philharmonic on New Year’s Day can lilt and twirl like no other orchestra. By the end, the ASO, a quick study, had already picked up a little lightness and buoyancy.
Runnicles’ program gave hope that the finesse and elegance of the first work would help inform the second, Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto. Composed in the dark year of 1935 and loaded with the composer’s personal anguish, the concerto is a masterpiece that bridged the over-ripe world of late Romanticism with the stark dissonance of 12-tone Modernism.
Runnicles got us prepped. Before starting the concerto, we heard a recording of the Lutheran chorale “It is enough” (from Bach’s Cantata No. 60, “O Eternity, you Word of Thunder”), which Berg quotes in the finale. With the musicians illustrating his points, the conductor partially explained its rich inspiration.
The soloist, who makes Vienna his home, was Julian Rachlin, dressed in a swanky black silk suit with a red hankie peeking from the breast pocket. His playing was in no way flashy, however. He’s a deep, careful interpreter and he played the concerto as if it were the end of the line for Romanticism, a world coming to an end.
That fit with Runnicles’ slow, often ponderous tempos. But where was the Viennese lilt and charm? If the performance didn’t click Thursday -- and the audience’s cough cantata during the quiet sections suggested it wasn't fully engaged -- one suspects Rachlin and the orchestra will pull it together for subsequent evenings. (Interestingly, the last time the ASO programmed Berg’s Violin Concerto, with then-concertmaster Cecylia Arzewski in 2006, the orchestra played with more involvement and, no surprise, the audience was rapt.)
Runnicles closed with Brahms' Second Symphony, adding fresh insight to this old favorite. He had the cellos and basses articulate the lullaby phrase in the opening movement, giving it personality and warmth. Brice Andrus’ horn melodies were splendidly executed.
Yet the symphony, like the rest of the program, wasn’t fully cooked and not till the hard-driving sections in the third movement did the orchestra play with concentrated unity.
Still, even though not fully realized, Runnicles’ interpretation was vivid, life-affirming, carved in three dimensions.
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. 8 tonight and Saturday. $20-$83. Symphony Hall, 1280 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. 404-733-5000, www.atlantasymphony.org
Pierre Ruhe is classical music critic of www.ArtsCriticATL.com
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