Last night, 14 May 2011, brought Paavo Järvi's ten-year run as music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra to a close. Everyone who has attended the CSO concerts and followed the orchestra over the past ten years have their own memories of what Paavo brought to the stage and the community. Under his leadership the orchestra toured abroad to Europe and Japan, collaborated on 17 CDs, with the Mussorgsky CD from 2008 winning a Grammy, and Paavo brought new music and rarely performed works to Music Hall. As far as rarely performed works go, Paavo led the second performance ever of Olivier Messiaen's colossal Turangalila symphonie, a work that highlights the ondes martenot, an instrument hard to come by, and only a handful of people remain skilled enough to perform it.
For his final concert, Paavo introduced the audience to two new works by his friend Erkki-Sven Tüür. The first work was a world premiere of the anniversary fanfare, Fireflower, followed by the American premiere of his Piano Concerto with Awadagin Pratt as soloist. Pratt is on the piano faculty at UC's College-Conservatory of Music. Tüür is hardly a tunesmith. His approach to music deals with soundscapes, sound masses, and achieving unique colors from the orchestra. The second half of the concert featured Gustav Mahler's Fifth Symphony. Perhaps this was a fitting choice to close his tenure as music director since Mahler's Fifth Symphony received it's American premiere by the CSO in 1905 under the direction of Frank Van der Stucken. There is no greater substitution to experiencing Mahler live, especially in skillful hands such as Paavo's. Little motif nuances that often get buried in some of the thickest orchestration points come to the surface under his direction.
Until last night I had never heard Mahler's Fifth Symphony live. In fact all the concerts Paavo conducted Mahler was my first time hearing these symphonies live. This includes the Second, Ninth, Seventh, and Fifth. Though these are great works to experience live, there is still a single concert that stands out for me. Paavo led an outstanding interpretation and performance of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique in 2007. The direction was incredible, the orchestra responded skillfully to his direction, and performed the best I believe I have heard them. With Paavo's departure he joins some great company of former music directors of the CSO, including: Leopold Stokowski, Fritz Reiner, Eugene Goosens, and Thomas Shippers.
I took video of Paavo's final bows, and hs encoe of Sibelius's Valse triste. This was a fitting encore for me since Sibelius's Kullervo was on the first program I heard Paavo conduct. So it was nice to have bookends of Sibelius to finish my experience of the Paavo years. The video was too large to post here, but you can find both parts on my facebook page
