What a treat to hear Sibelius’s second symphony at Severance last night! A complex work that breaks many rules of the form, it demands technical excellence from every section of the orchestra. Young conductor Robin Ticciati has not quite mastered the piece, but the Cleveland Orchestra was more than up to the challenge.
The evening got off to a shaky start with Anatoli Liadov’s The Enchanted Lake, a brief, evocative picture of exactly what the title suggests. It’s a gentle, understated work that calls mostly for fine textures and subtle nuances. Ticciati gave the piece a nice gloss, though without much definition or depth. The sublime sound was due mostly to the orchestra’s sublime string section, complemented by some lovely flute duets.
Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 put Ticciati on more familiar ground. He showed better command of the material and did an outstanding job of balancing the volume and tempo of the orchestra with the soloist, Simon Trpceski. The complementary sounds worked very well, with the lush Romanticism of the orchestra providing a warm background for Trpceski’s bold, crisp piano.
With more room to work, Ticciati was able to develop some interesting dynamics, exploring the contrast between the dramatic piano lines and lyrical woodwinds in the adagio, and building up emotional swells for the familiar melodies of the final movement. He embellished the melodies with rich colors, and put a snappy cha-cha-cha ending on the piece (sorry, that’s what it called to mind) that brought the audience to its feet and even drew some cheeky whistling.
This article appears in Oct 24-30, 2012.