Not too many
composers can survive the scrutiny of a concert consisting only of their music.
The champ in this regard is undoubtedly Beethoven: an orchestra can schedule an
all-Beethoven concert with confidence of artistic and box-office success. This
is a composer people don’t get tired of – and even jaded music reviewers can be
roused to enthusiasm if the concert is well done. (Spoiler alert: both the
audience and I were quite enthusiastic about this one on Thursday night.)

In a program
repeating Saturday night at Kodak Hall, the RPO presented a stern but
crowd-pleasing program of three Beethoven works that all happen to be in the
same key, C Minor: the “Coriolan” Overture, the Third
Piano Concerto with Stephen Hough, and the Fifth Symphony, all under the lively
leadership of guest conductor Marcelo Lehninger.

Stephen
Hough is a marvelous pianist in almost any repertoire you care to mention. For
whatever reason, Beethoven’s C Minor Concerto didn’t seem to be an ideal match
of music and interpreter, at least on Thursday night: the long opening movement
seemed disjointed and a bit cold, and the rondo finale rather spiky and
humorless. However, these movements were surrounded by a Largo that warmed up
considerably.

Hough and
the orchestra played this grave and beautiful movement like chamber music – the
pearly figurations in the piano part seem to grow more and more elaborate as
the movement progresses, but Hough never overwhelmed the lyrical melodies in
the orchestra (and those duets for flute and bassoon were well worth hearing).
And for what it’s worth, Hough does codas really well. In the first movement,
Beethoven follows a tremendous cadenza with a compact, rather sinister ending,
which Hough played with a nice touch of mystery. And the runaway ending of the
finale gave the movement a sparkling finish. Though I found this performance
uneven, even on a slightly off night Stephen Hough is supremely intelligent
artist and always worth hearing.

The
Brazilian-born Lehninger, who is associate conductor
of the Boston Symphony, is a lively presence on the podium. His approach to
Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony was apparent from the famous opening measures, and
it was a very satisfactory one. He didn’t try to make a deeply personal
artistic statement or gain extra musicological points; he and the orchestra
seemed to be intent on simply giving a dramatic, well-played version of a
classic work, and it came off handsomely. (This was also the case for the “Coriolan” Overture, which opened the program.)

Lehninger
seemed to be giving a little extra encouragement to the cellos and basses, and he
got a nice solid sound with just the right hint of heaviness, not bad at all
for this work. And when those instruments got that famous solo of their own in
the scherzo, they ran with it (like “the gambols of a delighted elephant,” to
quote Hector Berlioz).

The famous
iris-in, iris-out effect of the transition between the scherzo and the finale
was perfectly judged, and the orchestra made the most of Beethoven’s odd, quiet
pizzicatos and wisps of tunes. In a famous passage describing this work in his
“Howard’s End,” E.M. Forster described this passage as “the goblins,” and it
did have a suitably creepy air. The finale was the usual blaze of glory, played
with enthusiasm and panache. Lehninger made the most
of the return of the “goblins” just before the coda; the man has a sense of
drama. And for that final blaze of glory, Lehninger
pulled the stops out pretty far, but just far enough. This interpretation of
the Fifth Symphony was driven, lyrical, exalted, a bit rude, and even a bit
funny. Sounds like Beethoven to me.

This article appears in Feb 4-10, 2015.