![\"Eivind](\"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/mphilGullbergJensen.jpg\")
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By ANDREW POWELL MUNICH \u2014 The 1909 candy-box essays by Sch\u00f6nberg and Webern, F\u00fcnf Orchesterst\u00fccke<\/em> and Sechs St\u00fccke<\/em>, can pass by gratuitously in uncommitted hands. Not so yesterday (Oct. 5) in a Munich Philharmonic<\/a> program pairing them with Beethoven concertos.<\/p>\n Norwegian conductor Eivind Gullberg Jensen<\/a>, calm and assured, drew incisive, expressive performances. It has been a few seasons since we heard the orchestra on such form: the sly curlicues and jocular punches of Sch\u00f6nberg\u2019s (Opus 16) First Piece contrasting bluntly with the foggy stasis and lunacy of his Third and Fourth; Webern\u2019s sparing, pastoral collection (Opus 6) emerging in uncompromised dynamic extremes, much challenged by the Munich concert hall\u2019s acoustics. A rare treat.<\/p>\n Leif Ove Andsnes<\/a>\u2019s luxuriant traversals of Beethoven\u2019s Second and Fourth Piano Concertos felt like afterthoughts in context. Gullberg Jensen enforced elegance in the accompaniment to the awkward Second (in B-flat) after the Sch\u00f6nberg, at tempos somewhat drawn out. In the Fourth (G Major), which followed the Webern and was again taken leisurely, but with a firm pulse, Andsnes made impeccable sense of the lines and related Beethoven\u2019s thoughts handsomely to each other. The MPhil played just as well in the concertos, reduced to half its size after the Modern scores.<\/p>\n Many seats were empty. It appears that the Lorin Maazel tenure is a negative for subscriber box-office, and high single-ticket prices deter spontaneous attendance at the disfigured 1985 Gasteig<\/a> venue, even to hear a star pianist. The marketing staff must wish a pox on the city bureaucrats who drove former Generalmusikdirektor<\/em> Christian Thielemann to Dresden.<\/p>\n Still image from video \u00a9 Philharmonie Luxembourg<\/p>\n Related posts:
Published: October 6, 2013<\/span><\/p>\n
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\nMunich Phil Tries Kullervo<\/a>
\nMPhil Vacuum: Maazel Out<\/a><\/p>\n