By Sedgwick Clark<\/b><\/p>\n
When Richard Strauss conducted the Boston Symphony in 1904, he stopped the players during a rehearsal <\/i>and said, \u201cGentlemen, when you play my music I hear all the notes. But I don\u2019t want <\/i>to hear all the notes.\u201d My guess is that he would have loved to hear Andris Nelsons conduct his Ein Heldenleben<\/i> last week at Carnegie Hall. Leading the BSO in his first New York appearances since becoming the orchestra\u2019s music director at the beginning of this season, the 37-year-old Latvian maestro conjured a glorious wall of sound in which the mass was never distracted by extraneous details.<\/p>\n
My last critical encounter with Nelsons was his Carnegie Hall concert performance of Richard Strauss\u2019s Salome <\/i>with the Vienna State Opera a year ago (3\/16\/14), of which I wrote that he made the composer \u201csound like an amateur orchestrator.\u201d Moreover, \u201che is impossible to watch . . . describing every little detail in the air to players far more acquainted with the music than he.\u201d I concluded that at a subsequent Vienna Philharmonic concert his \u201ctired reading of Brahms\u2019s Haydn Variations and a sprawling Third Symphony were not encouraging.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Nelsons\u2019s three concerts with the Boston Symphony couldn\u2019t have been more encouraging. In Ein Heldenleben<\/i>, the Bostonians seemed to have recaptured that plush, old-world sonority of the best Koussevitzky recordings. No Boulezian clarity and detail for this guy: Nelsons\u2019s expressive rubato, bass-oriented textures, and broad tempos (except in his uncommonly brisk, snarling treatment of The Hero\u2019s Adversaries) reminded me of Christian Thielemann\u2019s expansive performance with the New York Philharmonic in March 1997. The offstage brass in the Battle scene, so often too close at Carnegie, were perfectly judged.<\/p>\n
I was unable to hear the second concert, in which Shostakovich\u2019s Tenth Symphony was the centerpiece. Friends reported an extraordinary performance, and the Times<\/i>\u2019s Anthony Tomassini wrote that this concert was the best of the trio.<\/p>\n
The final concert featured a driving, energetic Mahler Sixth Symphony in the Bernstein mode, which only flagged somewhat in the second-movement Scherzo\u2019s trios.<\/p>\n
Expecting to be distracted by Nelsons\u2019s overconducting, as the year before, I came armed with the Strauss and Mahler scores. To my surprise, I found that he has tempered his flailing beat, and I could safely steal a momentary glance at the stage\u2014a sign that trust has built up in Boston\u2019s Symphony Hall!<\/p>\n
Looking Forward<\/strong><\/p>\n My week\u2019s scheduled concerts (8:00 p.m. unless otherwise noted):<\/p>\n 4\/24 at 7:30. The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America. 1161 Amsterdam Avenue. The Serge Prokofiev Foundation honors the opening of the Prokofiev Archive at Columbia University. Sergei Dreznin, piano; Barbara Nissman, piano; Erika Baikoff, soprano. Prokofiev: Sonata No. 1; The Ugly Duckling; Tales of the Old Grandmother; Sonata No. 6. Pre-concert lecture by Simon Morrison at 6:30.<\/p>\n 4\/27 Symphony Space at 7:30. Cutting Edge Concerts. Victoria Bond: Clara<\/i>.<\/p>\n 4\/28 Carnegie Hall. New World Symphony\/Michael Tilson Thomas; Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin. Schubert: Incidental Music from Rosamunde<\/i>. Berg: Violin Concerto. Norbert Moret: En r\u00eave<\/i>. Debussy: La Mer<\/i>.<\/p>\n 5\/29 Carnegie Hall. Audra MacDonald.<\/p>\n