As with all new relationships, the Cleveland Orchestra's inaugural season in Miami last year was one of formal introductions, getting acquainted and wondering how this association would progress and develop.
Franz Welser-Most and the Cleveland Orchestra opened the second year of their Miami residency Friday night at the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts presenting music of Mozart, Debussy and Dvorak to a sold-out house. Saturday's performance is also sold out but will be broadcast live on WKCP-FM (89.7) starting at 8 p.m.
In the Cleveland Orchestra's sophomore season, there are some new elements, principally two celebrated guest artists: pianist Radu Lupu, who will perform next weekend, and violinist Midori in March.
With a decidedly conservative program, Friday's opening tended to confirm the impression of last year's concerts under its music director. The Cleveland musicians once again displayed their corporate tonal polish and first-class musicianship, yet under the Austrian conductor's leadership the performances offered distinctly mixed rewards.
Welser-Most's approach to his compatriot Mozart is surprisingly unorthodox, yet in many ways the conductor's idiosyncratic touch in the charming Symphony No. 28 provided the most winning music-making of the evening.
Those who prefer uncomplicated Rococo charm in early Mozart would be jarred by Welser-Most's firm stressing of contrasts, particularly in the Andante where the emphatic wind interjections almost seemed to anticipate Don Giovanni. Elsewhere the performance was brisk and vivacious with dynamic and scoring detailing by the conductor that made one appreciate anew Mozart's originality. The final presto, taken at a crackling pace, was as exciting in its speed and pinpoint articulation as any Late Romantic blockbuster.
Even among the many celebrated musical evocations of Spain by French composers, it's hard to top Debussy's Iberia. Manuel de Falla said the work ''taught Spanish composers a more subtle way of using their own folklore,'' and indeed, Debussy's elliptical, even epigrammatic suggestion of local color manages to communicate the essence of Spain without resorting to quotation or pastiche.
The bright sunshine of the outer sections was thrown off with bracing rhythmic bite, guitars and castanets to the fore. In the central Les parfums de la nuit, however, the conductor's flowing direction felt far too literal, missing the nocturnal languor and mercurial strangeness of this music.
It would be difficult to discover something revelatory in Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 From the New World at this late date, one of the most performed -- or over-performed -- works in the repertory.
Welser-Most for the most part kept to a traditional view, with a trim agility and sensible tempos, balancing the drama, restless energy and nostalgic heartache. The Clevelanders' polish and corporate virtuosity were remarkable, from the hushed lower strings in the opening bars to the gracious wind playing in the Scherzo's trio and the full-tilt bravura of the entire ensemble in the hard-driving finale.
Yet for all the refinement and whirlwind virtuosity there was something oddly uninvolving about the performance. The famous Largo was most emblematic, with the conductor's tempos and detailing impeccable, yet for all the superior execution the performance felt coolly technocratic and remote.
The want of sonic impact may be due in part to the acoustical settings. The orchestra has kept the same hall calibration the orchestra used last year, and Cleveland management expresses satisfaction with it. But I can't help feeling that the optimum setting for the Clevelanders at the Knight Concert Hall has yet to be found.
Clarity and refinement are there, but the sound is wanting in immediacy, warmth and amplitude, with orchestral coloring distinctly muted and narrow in range.
