Yo-Yo Ma’s lyrical prowess on display at BSO concert

On Sunday August 2, Andris Nelsons conducted the BSO in a delightful Tanglewood concert featuring cellist Yo-Yo Ma. The other soloists were trumpet player Håkan Hardenberger and BSO principal violist Steven Ansell. The selection of music was an imaginative blend of classical elegance with two contrasting programmatic works. Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 90 in C preceded Brett Dean's Dramatis personae, Music for Trumpet and Orchestra. The storytelling element of Dean's starkly modern work proved a fascinating study juxtaposed against Richard Strauss's tone poem, Don Quixote: Fantastic Variations on a theme of knightly character.

The opening piece, Haydn's Symphony No. 90 (1788), is not among the composer's well-known works, but it is nevertheless a charming composition. In the first Adagio-Allegro assai movement, Andris Nelsons conducted with a tranquil, even playful interpretation, though not a passionate one. He was particularly adroit at inspiring nuanced pianissimo playing from the orchestra, and was also very adept at using musical pauses to capture the audience's attention. When a composer calls for brief rests in the music, the momentary silence can be even more arresting than a fierce sforzando.