An uneven symphonic pairing from Franz Welser-Möst in Cleveland

Franz Welser-Möst conducts The Cleveland Orchestra

By Frank Kuznik, 11 January 2026

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“as an invocation of a specific time and place it was brilliant”

Reviewed at Severance Music Center: Mandel Concert Hall, Cleveland on 10 January 2026

Mozart, Symphony no. 41 in C major, "Jupiter”, K551

Shostakovich, Symphony no. 11 in G minor "The Year 1905", Op.103

The Cleveland Orchestra

Franz Welser-Möst, Conductor

Barbara Hannigan surveys American voices with The Cleveland Orchestra

Sam Jacobson, 14th February

Works by Crumb, Ruggles, Barber and Gershwin offer four distinct ideas of what American music can sound like in Barbara Hannigan’s explorative Cleveland Orchestra program.

***11

The Cleveland Orchestra at Carnegie Hall: symphonic extremes

Sam Jacobson, 21st January

Following a polished account of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony, Shostakovich’s Eleventh erupted with visceral force, as Franz Welser-Möst led The Cleveland Orchestra in a performance of gripping intensity.

*****

A study in control and proportion: the Clevelanders’ Verdi Requiem

Edward Sava-Segal, 20th January

Asmik Grigorian leads a strong quartet of soloists and the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus shape the performance at Carnegie Hall.

****1

Yuja Wang serves an iridescent musical feast in Cleveland

Sam Jacobson, 28th November

Yuja Wang does double duty in demanding piano concertos by Ravel and Ligeti, while conductor Petr Popelka shows his chemistry with the orchestra in Pictures at an Exhibition.

****1

Gripping, somber Mahler 6 from Sokhiev and The Cleveland Orchestra

Sam Jacobson, 13th November

Tugan Sokhiev memorably debuts with The Cleveland Orchestra to lead a recent concerto for English horn and Mahler’s Tragic.

****1

Franz-Welser Möst leads a profound Cleveland Orchestra pairing

Sam Jacobson, 5th October

The Cleveland Orchestra couples a war-torn symphony of Arthur Honegger with Gustav Mahler’s sublime orchestral song cycle Das Lied von der Erde.

*****

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Frank Kuznik

Frank Kuznik is the former Editor-in-Chief and Culture Editor of The Prague Post, Central Europe’s premier English-language weekly newspaper. He currently divides his time between Prague and his hometown in the US, Cleveland, where he covers northeast Ohio's dynamic classical music scene. In Prague he is an habitué of the Rudolfinum, National Theater, State Opera and other storied classical music venues, and an unabashed fan of Czech music.