United States Hailstork, Brahms: Frank Rosenwein (oboe), Julia Kleiter (soprano), Lucas Meachem (baritone), Cleveland Orchestra Chorus (chorus director: Lisa Wong), Cleveland Orchestra / Petr Popelka (conductor). Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center, Cleveland, 5.11.2026. (MSJ)
Hailstork – Distant Lands, Triptych for Oboe and Strings
Brahms – Ein deutsches Requiem, Op.45
After an underpowered Mahler Fifth last week, guest conductor Petr Popelka found himself on much more appealing ground with a rich and radiant performance of Brahms’s German Requiem. It may simply be that Popelka lacks the quirky neuroticism to fully enter the worlds of composers like Mahler and Robert Schumann, but he clearly adores Brahms and it resulted in a resonant performance utterly free of the pulled punches which marred last week’s program.
The orchestral sound was built from the bottom up, as demonstrated in the opening bars. On a foundation of firm double basses, rich chords of cellos and violas drew the listener in with gorgeous string tone, something we have heard only rarely in recent decades in Cleveland. Yet there was nothing lush nor overwrought about the tone Popelka drew from the Cleveland strings. Rather, it felt natural and essential to the emotionally-laden music. When the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus entered above this tender cradle of strings, it matched the instrumentalists in radiance and warmth.
Happily, the full-throated moments of the score in the ominous second movement and the glorious sixth were given whole-heartedly without any crippling reserve but also without any hint of hectoring bombast. This, against the work’s many moments of vulnerability and gentleness, resulted in a performance that flowed like a river, never rushing, never lagging. Popelka, meanwhile, found plenty of moments within this flow to animate details and inspire the players to dig in deeply.
Baritone Lucas Meachem deployed his mellow voice as the embodiment of consolation, weaving in and out of textures without attempting to shout them down. Soprano Julia Kleiter quickly warmed up after having to sit more than halfway through the piece before singing and found her expression by constantly engaging with the flow of music around her, as if each moment were created anew.
Enough cannot be said about the excellent Cleveland Orchestra Chorus. Director Lisa Wong must drill them rigorously because they never step on the stage without an absolute mastery of the material. There is no sloppiness, no out-of-tune harmony, no shrill passages, for they have already worked through the potential pitfalls, determined to give a chorus fit to share the stage with one of the world’s finest orchestras. And that they are. They responded with radiant voice to Popelka’s attentive shaping of lines, coloring their precision with ample warmth in a performance likely to be long remembered.
Opening the concert was the world-premiere of Adolphus Hailstork’s Distant Lands, which the composer describes as a triptych for oboe and strings. Commissioned by the Cleveland Orchestra for Frank Rosenwein, its amazing principal oboist, the piece is a lyrical evocation of excursions to, or perhaps more accurately dreams of, faraway places, though Hailstork’s trademark American accent is never far away.
The piece begins with an extended solo cadenza which offered a lovely chance to listen to Rosenwein’s extraordinary tone alone. Though the oboe is typically thought of as having a honey-sweet sound, Rosenwein’s tone has something of the tawny darkness which used to characterize the oboes of the Vienna Philharmonic in the mid- to late-20th century, only without the sourness that sometimes crept into those players’ tones. Moreover, he maintains that precarious balance while playing with a balletic lyricism that is never lost, even as the pace and the technical demands of the music heat up. When the cadenza led into a mischievous first movement, Popelka made sure that the strings high-spiritedly intermingled with the oboe. The second movement was the lyrical highlight of the work, exploring far and wide, but with gentleness. The final movement, though marked Andante, was of sterner starch, giving Rosenwein brilliant moments against the energetic strings. Hailstork was on hand to receive the audience’s extended ovation for the lovely work.
Popelka certainly proved himself much more thoroughly in this week’s program, showing that he has a warmth of approach that is enormously rewarding in the right repertoire. But two weeks from now will bring the first of two visits this season from Santtu-Mathias Rouvali, widely discussed as another prime candidate for the music directorship of the Cleveland Orchestra. We’ll be there to report.
Mark Sebastian Jordan