There are two concertos Beethoven almost wrote. One is the clarinet concerto enshrined within the Fourth Symphony, the other is the cello concerto desperate to escape from the dire Triple Concerto, which chugs along like bad Weber, and there’s nothing worse than that.
The best one can say about that piece is that it furnishes opportunities for wonderful chamber-music empathy, and this was certainly in evidence in Thursday’s heartening, packed-house CBSO Benevolent Fund concert.
Cellist Daniel Muller-Schott never exploited the prominence Beethoven gives his instrument, though his tone was lustrous and his articulation eloquent. Instead, he participated as a willing partner within a trio collaborating so smilingly together: Baiba Skride, whose violin has performed so rewardingly with the CBSO in the past, and equally so Lars Vogt, his pearly, crystalline pianism reduced to a mere cipher in Beethoven’s ridiculous scoring.
One opus number earlier comes Symphony no.3, the Eroica, and wow, what a world apart from the commercialism of the Concerto to the world-shattering message of this, the world’s greatest symphony.
Andris Nelsons and his willing orchestra gave us a lithe, well-weighted and totally appreciative account of this wonderful work. Horns (Beethoven augmented them for the first-ever expressive reason in a symphony - Haydn and Mozart’s examples of four horns were for technical expediency) were nobly magnificent, woodwinds were eloquent, and strings were deliciously responsive to Nelsons’ often baton-less beat.
This was so well paced, climaxes arriving inevitably and so judiciously. No wonder Nelsons clapped his players at the end, and, gods be praised, this performance has been captured by |Orfeo for future CD release.
