Despite making his Minnesota Orchestra debut in 1976, it wasn’t until last weekend that Sir Andrew Davis managed a return appearance, closing a season marked by a wide range of guest conductors during the orchestra’s interregnum between music directors. Major scores of middle-period Beethoven opened and closed the evening, framing a pair of sharply contrasting works from the 20th century.
Beethoven’s Egmont overture opened bold and bellicose, with the weight of drama present from the outset. Solo passages from the principal woodwinds epitomized the fine level of orchestral playing Davis encouraged. Owing to his long tenure at Lyric Opera of Chicago, Davis is a seasoned operatic conductor, apparent in his keen sense of narrative and dramatic pacing, maximizing impact. Sitting in the balcony of the shoebox-shaped Orchestra Hall, I was quite a distance from the stage but was nonetheless struck by how visceral the sound was.
James Ehnes also has a long history with the Minnesota Orchestra, having first performed with them as a teenager following a competition win. This weekend he came armed with the Berg Violin Concerto, a work written in 1935 on a commission from Louis Krasner, who some years later would become the Minnesota Orchestra’s concertmaster. Matters began gentle, pondering and questioning, with Ehnes’ clear, crystalline tone cutting into the work’s lyrical heart. An arpeggio figure recurred as something of a binding element, though never quite the same way twice, and a livelier passage suggested Viennese vestiges in its ghost of a waltz.
The latter movement started in thunderous contrast and bore the work’s most overt virtuosity, confronting death in no uncertain terms as per the concerto’s tragic source of inspiration. Thick, thorny textures were given with gripping intensity, though the striking surfacing of a Bach chorale in the winds hinted at the work’s reflective resolution. The final moments saw Ehnes entranced in a long-bowed melodic line, broaching the upper bound of his instrument. Apposite given the concerto’s connection to Bach, Ehnes returned for a deeply touching account of a slow movement from Bach's A minor sonata.
Originally conceived as a solo piano piece, Chen Yi’s 1985 work Duo Yi takes inspiration from the traditional song and dance of the Dong minority which she encountered while traveling through the Guangxi district while a student at Beijing’s Central Conservatory. Cast for chamber-sized orchestra, it spoke directly with its efficient use of orchestral forces. Rhythmic, energetic figures brought the dance vividly to life, though the occasional introspective solo passage added contrast. The scoring gives particular primacy to the percussion, a battery which colorfully brought matters to a terse close.
It was fitting for a work informed by dance to precede Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, a quantity famously dubbed by Wagner as “the apotheosis of the dance”. Like the Egmont, it began practically bursting at the seams with wound-up potential energy. In due course, the music took flight in boisterous vigor, with Davis sculpting sharp dynamic contrasts. The exuberance of the symphony makes it less of the emotional rollercoaster one usually associates with Beethoven, nonetheless, the Allegretto was very much an essay of raw, heart-on-the-sleeve emotion, deftly shaped by Davis’ graceful conducting sans baton. Not a cloud in the sky persisted for the latter two movements, however, from the brass-heavy Scherzo to the crisp strings of finale’s foot-tapping race to the finish, a close as enthusiastic as the audience’s response.
