United States ‘Beethoven’s Fateful Fifth’: Michael Sachs (trumpet), Cleveland Orchestra / Elim Chan (conductor). Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center, Cleveland, 12.3.2026. (MSJ)
Stravinsky – Pulcinella Suite (1949 revision)
Haydn – Trumpet Concerto in E-flat major
Beethoven – Symphony No.5 in C minor, Op.67
If this concert was a job interview, it is safe to say that Elim Chan scored well. Having demonstrated her increasingly well-known gifts with splashy showstoppers in previous visits, Chan was invited back for two weekends of concerts with the Cleveland Orchestra this season. It is no secret that the orchestra is looking for a successor to music director Franz Welser-Möst who will leave the post at the end of next season after a twenty-five-year tenure, the longest in the ensemble’s history. Welser-Möst took some time to find his stride, but having eventually achieved a distinguished level, his reserve has very much become identified with the orchestra’s style. Anyone who follows him as music director will have to establish their own personality with force and energy and prove they can master the core classical repertory upon which this orchestra was built. It was essential for Chan to show that she could make an impact with less flashy music.
And she did. The concert started with the suite drawn from Igor Stravinsky’s ballet Pulcinella, that composer’s first salvo in an entirely new direction. He had become famous (or infamous) for Le Sacre du printemps, his 1913 ballet score that catapulted classical music into the heady world of primitivism. But after numerous other young composers started attempting to out-Stravinsky Stravinsky, he grew tired of that aesthetic and turned to neo-classicism. Pulcinella took 18th-century instrumental works by Italian Baroque and Classical composers such as Pergolesi and Wassenauer and transformed them into a work that could only be by Stravinsky. Where others might orchestrate, Stravinsky reimagined the pieces, moving phrases to extreme registers, introducing some dissonances and sharpening the rhythms. The result is a pure delight.
Many performances push the tempos to extremes, making it sound brittle. At the other extreme was a performance I heard Raphael Frühbeck de Burgos conduct with the Boston Symphony in 2013, where he reinvented the work with a more leisurely, charming approach. Chan found a sweet spot between those extremes, full of alert energy yet sensitive to the magic of Stravinsky’s subtle tweaks. Her use of a reduced string section (eight violins, four violas, three cellos and three double basses) put more emphasis on the bright colors of the winds and brass. The resulting clarity was aided by crisply sprung rhythms. Frank Rosenwein brought a golden gleam to his numerous oboe solos, particularly in the intense longing of the Serenata. Concertmaster Joel Link had an elegant flair in his many solos, and principal trombone Brian Wendel and first assistant principal double bass Charles Paul drew laughs from the audience for their exquisite comic timing in the slapstick glissandos and mock serious soliloquies of the Vivo movement. Chan showed that she could steer the orchestra with a daredevil tempo in the Toccata, but even more remarkable was her confidence in knowing when to keep out of the way and let the musicians shine.
Next came a welcome opportunity to hear Michael Sachs, the Cleveland Orchestra’s esteemed principal trumpet, in Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto. Sachs has been in that role for an impressive 38 seasons and has performed this work twice. After the reduced strings of the Stravinsky, one might have wondered about the increase to twenty-one violins and smaller expansions of the other strings, but the balance proved ideal: Sachs played with such a grand voice that the number of strings was essential to counterbalance him. And Chan was not there to merely accompany. She proved highly alert to every subtle shift of emphasis, actively steering the work through its formal structure. Fast tempos were crisp and light but with flexibility at transitional moments. Sachs proved nimble despite his luxurious tone, with only a couple of minor cracked attacks on notes to detract from the first movement’s regal poise. The slow movement took on the feel of an operatic aria, Sachs’s trumpet singing with gravity and grace, while the finale was buoyant.
Ask a thousand people how the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth should go, and you might well get a thousand different answers. Elim Chan’s answer was to keep it on a tight leash, fast with no rhetorical slowing down, dynamics restrained but playing fiercely articulated. The second movement was arguably the most impressive of the performance. Many conductors are lured by the first theme into thinking that it will be a broadly singing slow movement. It’s not and Chan rightly recognized that the opening theme is merely the suave precursor to a lot of warlike saber-rattling. She caught that eruptive nature of the movement far better than in previous performances I have heard here over the years, including those under Sir Georg Solti and Franz Welser-Möst himself.
The Scherzo started off mysteriously, but the trio was fantastically effective with etched articulation from the cellos and double basses. It struck me how different these scales sounded from the inert, directionless scales we heard recently in the first movement of Brahms’s Third under a different guest conductor. Chan knows how to encourage the strings to lean into phrases, giving pages at a time a dramatic shape. The finale, with repeat, was joyously brash, the conductor accelerating into the closing pages without ever letting it take off like a runaway train. This was skilled, sensitive and perceptive conducting of classical repertory. Test aced.
After the surprise news last week of Andris Nelsons’s ouster as the Boston Symphony’s music director in 2027, the leadership issue becomes a sharper concern. Now three major US ensembles (Boston, Cleveland and Los Angeles) are looking for a new conductor. Reviews suggest that Chan has had great successes in her LA visits and hit it off fantastically with audiences. Her visits to Cleveland have seen similar reviews and responses, though at least a handful of commentors do not favor Chan. Without question, many in Cleveland do, including the audience member who declaimed as she exited the hall, ‘If they don’t sign her immediately, they’re insane’.
Mark Sebastian Jordan
Featured Image: Elim Chan conducts the Cleveland Orchestra © Yevhen Gulenko/TCO
Elim or bust! I’ve never seen a conductor morph to the challenge with the performers as she does. She makes sure to acknowledge every musician after the performance where others soak up the attention for themselves.
TCO is on a different tier altogether than LA or Boston. Make it happen.
Ditto with Jason. Hopefully the Musical Arts Association simply won’t overthink this and miss an opportunity to continue making history. And music at the highest level.
Could not agree more with the prior sentiments. This was the third time I’ve had the pleasure of hearing Chan and the Cleveland Orchestra work their magic together and the combination has been truly amazing each time. I appreciate the way she acknowledges the members of the orchestra – respect and appreciation they well deserve. She also manages to bring them together in a way that is exciting and fresh. Left to me, Elim Chan would be the next Music Director for the Cleveland Orchestra.
Congratulations to the San Francisco Symphony and new Music Director Elim Chan!
I think there are probably a lot of disappointed people in both Cleveland and Los Angeles tonight. It will be very interesting to see who they ultimately thought would be a better choice than Chan.
Another site posted a few weeks ago that Rouvali was selected, and despite a less than convincing denial from the Orchestra’s PR, the site moderator also posted that a contract was all but signed. If this is accurate, expect an announcement in a week or so after the enthusiasm over the Fidelio performances is over. Management doesn’t want to overshadow Franz’s success.
It’s possible, though Rouvali does not strike me as being a match to Cleveland’s longstanding legacy. He has done well in his recent guest appearances, but he does have a tendency toward random eccentricity that might grate with repeated exposure. We’ll see. I don’t put a lot of stock in Lebrecht. He’ll say anything for the clicks.
I’m a bit surprised you didn’t mention San Francisco was also searching for a music director when you referenced competition for Chan with Los Angeles and Boston. As it turns out, they won in the end. In an interview, Chan did say she was tired of waiting for Los Angeles to commit when SFSO came calling. Apparently, she feels a close connection with the musicians in SF, and is on the same page as the management. Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound like Chan and Cleveland were ever in discussions. SFSO is a remarkably good orchestra, though they don’t get as much attention as their neighbor to the south.
None of the perceived candidates seem to coincide with Cleveland’s longstanding legacy. In any event, your point about Lebrecht is well taken, but he’s usually right about announcing appointments in advance. He may have a mole(s) in the agencies representing these artists. Also, the Chan/San Francisco announcement strongly suggests that Cleveland decided on a different approach given her successes in Cleveland and popularity with the audience. Without getting too deep into the Boston predicament, butts in seats are very important.