The Italian conductor Fabio Luisi has become an increasingly familiar and welcome face to New York audiences. Recently appointed Principal Conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, he is primarily known here as an operatic conductor. But he has also been the chief conductor of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra (known as the Wiener Symphoniker in German) since 2005, and on Sunday the Viennese joined him in Avery Fisher Hall. While the warhorse program recalled the taste of the city’s other major orchestra--the arch-conservative Vienna Philharmonic--it was a fine afternoon.
For the orchestra, the centerpiece of this rather short program was in the second half, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7. (The program originally featured Franz Schmidt’s remarkable and underrated Symphony No. 4 but was changed to the familiar Beethoven, an unfortunate alteration.) As was clear in his recent Siegfried at the Met, Luisi is a conductor of Apollonian temperament, leading interpretations of elegant control and clear textures. This was a polished performance that never lost a sense of classical balance. Richard Wagner called this symphony "the apotheosis of the dance," but Luisi's dance was a classical ballet, not a cancan.
Luisi began the first movement at a broad tempo, showcasing the orchestra’s plush string sound and excellently balanced winds. The body of the movement (which included the exposition repeat) was played with graceful power. Luisi’s excellent dramatic timing, always an asset in conducting opera, proved valuable in the exciting coda. The famous opening of the second movement was intoned by the lower strings with mechanical flatness, growing in expression with the entry of each section of the orchestra. It made a powerful crescendo, though one that felt more inevitable than organic. The third movement showed quicksilver gradations of dynamics and phrasing through the many repetitions of the theme. The last movement was taken at an exhilarating tempo but never turned manic.