If You Can Make It There...

One of the great things about being a musician in the internet age is the constant two-way connection you can make with your audience. Where professional critics once stood alone in assessing the quality or relevance of a performance, now anyone with a keyboard and five minutes to set up a blog can have his/her say. There are downsides to this, as everyone knows, but in a relative niche market like classical music, the benefits far outweigh the annoyances.

On a related note, our orchestra has been in New York this week, where we played our annual Carnegie Hall concert on Monday night, pairing Michael Steinberg's arrangement of Beethoven's Grosse Fuge with Sibelius's monumental Kullervo. (And of course, a rousing encore of Finlandia for good measure.) To be honest, I wasn't sure what the New Yorkers would make of this program and the way we play it. These are two works in which Osmo demands a lot of very aggressive, even brutal playing, and while many people consider that kind of edge-of-your-seat music propulsive and exciting, those raised on the deliberate, contemplative style of conductors like Karajan or Maazel might sometimes find our approach jarring.

But so far, every word I've seen written about the Carnegie Hall concert has been a rave, and it's been fun, as always, to discover what new classical music blogs have popped up in New York since I last checked in. Here are some links to the write-ups I've found so far - I'll add more to this post as they pop up. (And yes, I'll include any negative reviews as well, but so far, there don't seem to be any, which is a nice feeling...)

Late Addendum, March 15: The estimable Alex Ross of The New Yorker has checked in with one of the best reviews our orchestra has ever received. Coming from Ross, who I respect like virtually no other writer working today, this means a great deal. The link is at the bottom of the list...

The New York Times: "Mr. Vanska has led the Minnesota Orchestra to impressive heights since becoming its music director in 2003, and the ensemble sounded fantastic on Monday. From the sweeping opening melody of the Introduction, the playing was detailed and intensely expressive, carrying the listener along..."

Musical America: "The truly awesome perfection of ensemble was jaw-dropping... To hear the five string bodies converse fortissimo with such unanimity and split-second force was jaw-dropping, but the pianissimos—a Vänskä speciality—arrested the listener’s attention no less. More than once I exclaimed to myself, 'My god!'"

ConcertoNet: "The real hero, though was Osmo Vänskä, a conductor who never shirks from “becoming” the dynamics he is conducting. A player told me his baton technique is faultless. But Mr. Vänskä’s essence is that his excitement–for the painfully enigmatic Beethoven and the instinctually emotive Sibelius–was expressively infectious."

Classics Today: "There's no denying the fact that Vänskä, a superb Beethoven conductor generally, has the Minnesota strings in top form. They tore into this awkward piece like a pack of happily unanimous demons."

The Classical Source: "Vänskä led a performance of the choral version of Sibelius's “Finlandia” that was breathtaking, concluding what was easily the finest concert I've heard so far this season."

The New Yorker: "It was the saddest, loveliest thing I have heard in a long time. For the duration of the evening of March 1st, the Minnesota Orchestra sounded, to my ears, like the greatest orchestra in the world."