Listened to the Cleveland Orchestra broadcast last night. After a deadly dull performance of Sibelius 4, Franz Welser-Most turned in an absolutely stunning (in every sense of the word) performance of Bruckner 9. The first movement was driven and full of rubato even by Eugen Jochum standards, and the third was at Bruno Walter speed. For anybody who's ever heard his fantastic Bruckner 5 with the LPO, none of this should be a surprise. But it's always a surprise when FWM turns in a great performance because so many of his performances are boring as hell.
FWM seems like two conductors to me. You can tell when he's comfortable with the music because he gives it as much drive and flow as anything Rattle or Barenboim does. But when he's not, he literally does nothing to the music and plays it completely straight. I still think that FWM may turn out to be one of the great conductors of our time, but he needs more performances like that to be one.
Topic: FWM/Cleveland Bruckner 9 (Read 6705 times)