THE PLAIN DEALER
March 10, 2007

Under Masur's baton, Bruckner comes alive

Donald Rosenberg

Only a variation on Shakespeare will suffice to portray the past two weeks at Severance Hall: Now is the winter of our sonic contentment, made glorious by two German-born former music directors of major American orchestras.

Last week, Christoph von Dohnanyi, the Cleveland Orchestra's music director laureate, returned in triumph after an absence of nearly five years. This week, the orchestra is privileged to be collaborating with Kurt Masur, who led the New York Philharmonic from 1991 to 2002, in his first appearance with the Cleveland musicians in 16 years.

The concert Thursday was one of those occasions when everything sounded inevitable and penetrating. Masur conducted a performance of Bruckner's Symphony No. 4 that will be remembered for its commanding sense of shape and glowing sonority. And he joined the inspired young Armenian violinist Sergey Khachatryan in an urgently expressive account of Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1.

The Bruckner was overwhelming, even possibly for listeners not normally responsive to the Austrian composer's vast symphonies. These works are cathedrals of sound built of sacred and pastoral materials and held together by unusual structural devices. They need a conductor with a keen grasp of architecture, space and silence to achieve the requisite grandeur.

In the Fourth Symphony, Masur was master of all things Brucknerian. He shaped each movement as if it were a brook flowing vibrantly amid towering mountains and serene valleys. The hallowed auras that pervade Bruckner's symphonies received patient and majetic molding.

Masur also emphasized the music's Schubertian roots. This was a reading of abundant lyrical warmth and buoyancy, especially in the Scherzo's chipper hunting-horn activity and lilting laendler. The ensemble's guest sculpted the challenging finale as if it were the most cohesive symphonic summary.

Under Masur's wise, purposeful guidance, the orchestra played with luminous elegance. The brasses brought graceful splendor to Bruckner's organlike sonorities, and the strings, winds and timpani were refined partners in the score's mystical and earthy evolution. Richard King's horn solos touched heaven. At the end, the musicians applauded Masur, as they had Dohnanyi last week.

The Bruckner was so special that it could have obliterated memory of the Bruch. But Khachatryan's performance seized the ears and the heart. His prodigious blend of musical ardor and instrumental prowess made the piece's profusion of Romantic sentiments seem newly minted.

The violinist, who is in his early 20s, treated this beloved score with daring assurance. He expanded phrases for all their reflective or opulent worth, always as a means of exploring the music's meaning. Bruch's tenderness couldn't have been more sensitively conveyed, nor his bravura (in the finale) set forth with greater rhythmic vivacity. Masur and the orchestra were stellar colleagues.