Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s World-Class Beethoven

When listening toclassical music, acoustics and where you sit in the hall are almost asimportant as the performance itself. At the Sunday afternoon Milwaukee SymphonyOrchestra concert I was seated in row J on the main floor, about eight or ninerows closer than my regular seats. That doesn’t seem like much, but thedifference was enormous. Further back in the hall the sound has more space anddistance to create some natural mix. The closer seats allow for morediscernible detail, but at an obvious and crucial cost, even with Edo deWaart’s innovation of positioning the orchestra upstage under the acousticceiling shell.

The performance ofBeethoven’s Symphony No. 6 was a master conductor’s fresh touch on a familiarmasterwork. This happy music came through with crispness and shapeliness, itstransitions elegant and full of anticipation. I found de Waart’s tempo choicesto be ideal, balancing both urgency and leisure, appropriate to a “Pastoral”symphony about the countryside. The music settled into a rhythmic groove attimes, creating gleeful buzz. The storm scene was exciting, melodramatic fury,but contained just enough to retain sharpness. The “Shepherd’s Song” finale hadan especially pleasing stately grace.

One of the benefits ofthe presence of a conductor of de Waart’s stature is world-class soloists.Vadim Repin is certainly one, heard here in one of his calling cards, theBeethoven Violin Concerto, which he is also playing this month with the NewYork Philharmonic and the Munich Philharmonic. Repin’s 1736 Guarneri del Ges%uFFFDviolin has a particularly sweet sound, a fascinating tool in the hands of anassertive Russian musician. His performance combined warmth and rigor, asinging legato and serious contemplation of this music. Repin’s sense of phrasekept the music constantly interesting, matched with de Waart’s conducting. It’sdifficult to imagine a violinist better suited to this profound concerto, butsomething still was not completely satisfying about the performance, and it'sdifficult to put my finger on it. As beautiful as the tone was, in highpassages early on it was a bit tight, becoming more free as the musicprogressed.