Yannick Nazét-Séguin, Bavarian Radio Orchestra, Grosses Festspielhaus

The program tonight was rather shorter than last night. The first half, the Beethoven Symphony No. 2, was just over half and hour, followed by intermission. The second half was the Symphony No. 5 by Shostakovich which is under an hour. The audience, gathered outside before the concert:

Click to enlarge

The lobby:

Before the concert:

Outside at intermission:

Looking down from one of those windows. Everyone is gathered around those awnings because that is where they are selling champagne, sekt, wine and other beverages.

And finally, Yannick urging the orchestra to stand to acknowledge the applause at the end:

Now of course this was a fine concert. It was announced a month or so ago that Yannick was replacing Mariss Jansons, the music director, for this concert due to illness. But I have to say I was just a bit disappointed. These are both pieces I know fairly well, the Shostakovich especially, and the performance seemed to lack intensity. Yes, the climaxes were certainly loud enough and the soft passages were very soft indeed, but the whole seemed to lack drive. The Beethoven was rather sensitive and frothy instead of sinewy. And the Shostakovich was certainly not going to move anyone to tears as it did at the first performance. This seemed just a bit cautious and the tempos were a bit slow. Where a Russian orchestra might have been tearing up the carpet and frothing at the mouth, the Bavarians were making very pleasant and charming music. Nothing wrong with that, of course, and the audience seemed to love it. But the raw emotion that a really great performance of Shostakovich ought to bring out didn't quite seem to be there. Everything was just a bit too smooth, without the gasps and breaks that I am used to.

I'll mull it over, of course, and might think differently tomorrow. There was an encore, quite bucolic. I didn't know it, but it made me think of Richard Strauss. Anyone want to correct me on that?

UPDATE: I just ran across  piece on Yannick Nézet-Séguin in the Montreal Gazette: Kaptainis: Nézet-Séguin goes around the world in seven days. Arthur Kaptainis is the long-time music critic for the Montreal Gazette and probably the best classical music journalist/critic in Canada. Here is the meat of the article:

Yannick’s travel needs in the coming week are relatively straightforward. Nuns’ Island on Tuesday for an outdoor concert with the OM: this is not such a problem.

The Saratoga Performing Arts Center in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., on Wednesday evening? Doable. A 3 1/2-hour drive, assuming no trouble at the border.

This concert will feature the Philadelphia Orchestra — the third ensemble YNS stares down in four days. Now, Philly players know their Rachmaninoff. Many of Rocky’s works were premièred by this orchestra. Still, the First Symphony remains something of a rarity that does not play itself.

Another Philadelphia program, on Thursday, includes two contemporary pieces being given their Saratoga premières: Jennifer Higdon’s Blue Cathedral and Mason Bates’s Anthology of Fantastic Zoology. Chicago critic Lawrence A. Johnson described the latter 11-movement opus in 2015 as the American composer’s “largest and most ambitious orchestral work to date, scored for huge forces and massive percussion battery.” Good thing the orchestra performed it under YNS last November.

The conductor is back with the OM on this side of the border later next week for concerts on Aug. 9 in Île-Perrot and Aug. 10 in Granby. Counting from Sunday, that makes a run of seven concerts for YNS in seven days with three orchestras in three countries in two hemispheres.

Again I ask: Who gave him Saturday off?

You should read the whole thing. Basically, Yannick has the kind of schedule that seems simply impossible. After a couple of weeks of this how can you even remember what city you are in, or what orchestra you are conducting, let alone the details of how each movement needs to be conducted?