The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra may not count among the US's most famous, but it has a strong recent history under the leadership of Sergiu Comissiona and David Zinman. And this concert under Yuri Temirkanov was clear evidence that its current musical director has a superb ensemble of players who respond magnificently to his brand of musicianship.
Samuel Barber's First Essay for Orchestra served as an eloquent calling card, showing off the qualities of the orchestra's various sections. First the lower strings, clear and precise, and then rich violas and warm fiddles, followed by horns on the mellow side, trumpets with a direct but vibrant colour, and precise trombones.
The temperature rose sharply with the arrival of André Watts, a pianist too rarely heard in the UK. In Rachmaninov's Second Concerto he sought out every corner of detail and colour. With a massive tone and magisterial control, he constantly fed new musical ideas to the orchestra, which replied with unrestrained enthusiasm. Watts and Temirkanov showed phenomenal understanding in their negotiation of an unusually fluid set of speeds. This was vibrant, exciting Rachmaninov, not brooding and passionate. It was the kind of performance that made you feel nobody else could have done it that way.
Debussy's La Mer, however, sounded a touch clinical, as if the well-behaved Americans and their Russian conductor were turning it into something by Rimsky-Korsakov. It was Ravel's La Valse that got the very best results from Temirkanov's idiosyncratic conducting style: no baton; almost no left hand; indistinct circular gestures when the orchestra was capable of playing without his help; gestures that merely signalled his enjoyment at the sound being made. Has any great conductor since Pierre Monteux been quite so economical with their movements?
If there is any one work that fully tests the relationship between conductor and orchestra, perhaps this is it. And with their performance in Manchester, Temirkanov and his orchestra showed they are heading for the top.
