United States Blossom Music Festival 2025 [4]: Alessio Bax (piano), Cleveland Orchestra / Daniele Rustioni (conductor). Blossom Music Center, Cuyahoga Falls, 2.8.2025. (MSJ)
Wagner – Tannhäuser Overture
Liszt – Piano Concerto No.1 in E-flat major
Brahms – Symphony No.1 in C minor, Op.68
In his Cleveland Orchestra debut, Daniele Rustioni emphasized the lyrical side in a program of old favorites, his interpretive choices as restrained as his programming though his skill was certainly on display. Wagner’s Tannhäuser Overture was stately, the brass held back and almost drowned out by the accompanying violins when they took over the main theme. Likewise, the central Venusberg episode, designed to depict frolicking nymphs, remained on the subdued side. Rustioni, recently named principal guest conductor of the Metropolitan Opera, otherwise kept textures clear and sonorous, though it seemed at times that he was acting out the music more than the orchestra was actually responding to his exuberant movements.
Things rose to a new level when Rustioni was working with guest soloist Alessio Bax – also making his debut – in Liszt’s Piano Concerto No.1. It became quickly evident that Rustioni exerted real control over the orchestra as he sculpted dynamic levels to dovetail with the pianist’s effortless brilliance in the romantic showpiece. Bax is an elite virtuoso, and he savored the cascades of notes that poured from the piano while keeping the discursive work firmly on course. In the partnership between podium and piano, the slow movement made more of an impact than it often does, with Rustioni finding real angst in the low string interruptions, provoking further response from Bax. The hand-in-glove partnership continued through the witty Scherzo and into the joyful finale, building up an impressive head of steam toward the end and drawing a vigorous response from the large crowd. The ovation brought an encore from Bax: György Cziffra’s arrangement of Brahms’s Hungarian Dance No.5, along with a few extra flourishes of his own. It is the kind of showpiece where the original tune gets overshadowed by billows of glittery nonsense but it’s fun. And Bax can spin blizzards of notes like few others, so what is not to love?
Rustioni emphasized the songful side of Brahms’s First Symphony, bolstered by attentive reading of the score and its details, though it didn’t open up the full potential energy of the score. One sensed that Rustioni was happy with exerting control over the hefty work but wasn’t out to take any risks with it, perhaps understandable in a festival concert situation with minimal rehearsal. Few conductors do take any risk with this repertory staple these days, and they defend that approach through the apparent restraint of Brahms’s score markings. An argument can also be made that Brahms intentionally left his markings minimal to allow room for personal inflection by the performers – something that eyewitnesses said Brahms did plenty of, himself – not to restrict by omission.
All I can say is that I have listened to almost a hundred years of recordings of Brahms’s First in my collection, from Otto Klemperer in 1928 to Robin Ticciati in 2017, as well as hearing it live in concert five times (including Cleveland Orchestra performances by Franz Welser-Möst, Mikko Franck and Asher Fisch), and I feel like something has been lost over the years. Listen to Leopold Stokowski (1929) or the first Bruno Walter recording (1953), and you hear a daring level of risk. Conductors as late as Leonard Bernstein in the 1960s and Peter Maag in the 1970s retained something of this spirit of high adventure. Does anyone today challenge orchestras to play like their very lives depend on it in this music? Brahms labored over the work for almost two decades as he sorted out the fallout of his (apparently) unconsummated love triangle with Clara Schumann and her husband – and Brahms’s musical father figure – Robert Schumann. He was tearing himself apart in this music and fighting his way to overcome the chaos. Any performance that doesn’t sound like it is risking its very sanity is playing it safe.
Don’t get me wrong. This was a fine performance, full of moments of skillful deployment of sections and savvy balance of Brahms’s sometimes dense textures. Gorgeous solos came from Jessica Sindell (flute), Nathaniel Silberschlag (horn), Afendi Yusuf (clarinet), Frank Rosenwein (oboe) and the entwined violins of Liyuan Xie and Jung-Min Amy Lee. The orchestra played deftly and gloriously throughout. But could you imagine what it might be like if a conductor came in and dared the formidable ensemble to tear into this very personal symphony without reservation? I think it would remind us why we listen to these pieces in the first place: not to be impressed by control but to be reborn through catharsis.
Blossom is a summer festival and, perhaps, it isn’t a fair test of a conductor like Rustioni who has clearly garnered acclaim worldwide for his work in the opera world. It would be interesting to see him return downtown with in-depth rehearsals to see what he is truly capable of. So much was so right here, and he may be worth a second look.
Mark Sebastian Jordan
Featured Image: The Cleveland Orchestra at the Blossom Music Center © Roger Mastroianni/TCO