AKRON BEACON JOURNAL
March 9, 2007

Masur comes, conquers crowd

Elaine Guregian

Cleveland was long overdue for a visit from 79-year-old Kurt Masur, who last conducted the Cleveland Orchestra in February 1991. Thursday night's concert with the orchestra at Severance Hall was a reflective and thoughtful event, notable for the intense concentration in both pieces on the program.

On the first half, Masur brought with him the Armenian violinist Sergey Khachatryan, who had just recently performed with him at the New York Philharmonic, where Masur is music director emeritus. Now in his early 20s, the violinist played with the same beguiling musicianship that was apparent at his Blossom appearance in 2005.

Khachatryan played the Bruch Violin Concerto as if it were a love poem he was composing on the spot. He unfolded melodies tenderly, with an ardor that was never spoiled by excess intensity. This was a performance of innocence and great natural beauty, enhanced by the sumptuous tone Khachatryan produces. Bruch's Romantic score suited him perfectly, and Masur was in agreement with him on the extra-relaxed tempos.

The audience fell hard for Khachatryan, and members of the orchestra also showed their enthusiasm by clapping or tapping their bows on their stands.

Masur dispensed with his score for the single piece after intermission, Bruckner's Symphony No. 4 (Romantic). Continuing to conduct without a baton, Masur led the orchestra with extraordinary sense of purpose through the fitful starts and stops of this score, which clocks in at a bit more than an hour. This is a symphony about trying, hesitating and trying something new, played with enormous sympathy by an orchestra that connected closely with the German conductor.

Magnificently solid low brass playing was the underpinning of this performance. It also benefited from the horn solos of Richard King, whom Masur had stand at the end.

A surprising amount of light shone through, which was a credit to the clarity of the playing. Bruckner was famously religious. The purity of the hymnlike passages and the thrillingly close ensemble playing of the brass section turned Severance Hall into a Gothic cathedral. Whether or not you think of the symphony in terms of Bruckner's Catholic faith, the quiet fervor of Thursday's performance lit a spiritual flame.