Rossini, Mendelssohn and Mahler
Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris, Saturday October 24 2015 Conductor: Yuri Temirkanov. Soprano: Camilla Tilling. St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra. Rossini : Barber of Seville overture Mendelssohn : Symphony N°4, Italian Symphnoy Mahler : Symphony N°4. An evening of undemonstrative virtuosity. You might call Temirkanov an "anti-Bernstein". His gestures are sparing and his conducting seems ( ars being celare artem ) likeably literal and straightforward: no showiness (or showmanship), no lush wallowing, no violent extremes, no pulling the score about: when the score comes to an abrupt halt (e.g. the end of the second movement of the Mahler), no slowing down to smooth the abruptness out. The magnificent orchestra comes across, under his guidance, as quietly impressive: one vast, neat, gently humming machine, with not so much a sense of separate sections as one of a single, intricately interconnected mechanism. Never a note out of place, of course; not one quack f...