Slatkin fires up NSO in final subscription program
With a program that celebrated both grand ideals and dark musings, Leonard Slatkin began the final program of his 12-year tenure as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra last night. It would be well worth catching one the repeats, Friday or Saturday at the Kennedy Center. (Click here for info.)
Beethoven's Leonore Overture No. 3, a mini-drama about the struggle for liberty, got a bracing workout from the conductor, who did some subtle things with phrasing early on, and put extra bite into the massed chords and surging tempos of the coda. There were some slippery bits of articulation, but the NSO still came through in big-boned and vibrant fashion. Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 2, a work filled with ominous gestures, sardonic flashes and a touch of defiance, even rage, against the some dark force, provided a worthy vehicle for the NSO debut of Sol Gabetta. The Argentine-born cellist, still in her 20s, is understandably making a spash on the world scene. She didn't just demonstarte the requisite technical command, but really got deep into the music's undercoating. Her absorbing performance was matched by Slatkin's attentiveness to detail and a potent effort by the orchestra, especially the horns and percussion.
Slatkin closed the program with one of his specialties, Copland's Symphony No. 3, which also featured on the conductor's first concert at the NSO helm in 1994. This work should be as well known to American audiences as Dvorak's New World Symphony. The music conjures up open spaces, hearts and minds; it's at once rustic and urban, rugged and sensitive. Slatkin caught the full measure of the score and had the NSO operating impressively. The string section -- the conductor's greatest gift to the development of the orchestra -- shone with particularly warmth and power. For the big tune of the finale, Copland appropriated one of his own, best-known pieces, Fanfare for the Common Man. Hearing it resound so passionately last night suggested that it could also be considered, at least this weekend, a fanfare for an uncommon conductor.
