Symphony No 41 (Jupiter) - Mozart
Alpine Symphony - Strauss
The juxtaposition of Mozart and Richard Strauss (under the absurdly twee thematic banner of "Melodies and Themes") is the major focus of Gerhard Markson's first season as principal conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra. Strauss's reverence for Mozart, and his high reputation as a Mozart interpreter, are the overt justifications for the programming connection. The reality, I suspect, embraces a lot more than just the link between the two composers.
Markson has been engaged in recording major works by Richard Strauss for the Naxos label in thoughtful, spacious performances. That's a strength on which to build. And he can't but have noticed how ill-disciplined and unstylish the orchestra's playing is in the major composers of the latter half of the 18th century, Haydn and Mozart. So there's a weakness to get to work on.
At the NCH on Friday, the opening of Mozart's Jupiter Symphony promised a performance of urgency and point. The tempos Markson set were generally brisk and the playing often had a lift that distinguished it from the orchestra's norm in Mozart. However, there was still an effect of what you might call the default balances asserting themselves, first violins dominating the strings even when musical sense dictated otherwise, ditto the strings over the woodwind, and the reinforcement of brass and timpani creating muddying effects.
Markson's approach to Strauss's Alpine Symphony was typically painstaking. The eerie string haze of the nocturnal opening was as carefully controlled as the contribution of the dozen offstage horns or the blazing brass of the summit successfully attained. But the surge and sweep necessary to make such a potentially static-sounding piece come fully to life were missing.
The overall effect reminded me of Beecham's quip about the English not really liking music, just liking the noise that it makes. There were some very impressive moments in this calculated Alpine panorama, but the whole seemed decidedly less than the sum of its parts.
