Mark Elder with the CSO II

Mark Elder's haphazard program of Delius, Webern, Sibelius and Brahms Tuesday night at Orchestra Hall turned out (through no fault of Elder's, I should add) to be only a partial success. And the succesful moments were indisputably his doing. One suspects that the mammoth Brahms Double Concerto hitched incongruously to the end of a program of short, musically concentrated works was the result more of insistence from CSO higher-ups on including a Romantic masterwork than on Elder's programming sensibilities. The glowing pastoral impressionism of the Delius, the bracing intensity of the Sibelius, and the extreme economy and surprising expressiveness of the Webern were wonderfully complementary. The Brahms seemed to impede on the sense of focus and subtlety achieved by the combination of works preceding it rather than make for a rousing finale.

The disappointing effect of the Brahms, though, went beyond how out of place it was in this program of short 20th century works. This is a work that, because of the modest use of tutti orchestral passages ("modest" at least in relation to Brahms' greatest concertos, which really resemble symphonies as much as works for soloist and orchestra) depends on great chamber music from the violinist and cellist. The cellist this night was Jan Volger, appearing for the first time with the CSO, and his exuberant unpredictability made for some awkward moments (and slippery intonation) when set against the effortless virtuosity and generosity of CSO concertmaster Robert Chen on violin. Still, while Volger's risk-taking made for an incoherent reading of the part, it also yielded some wonderful moments: for one, the full-throated, cellistic sound he brought to bear on the opening movement's second theme, which, presumably because it's introduced delicately by the violin, most cellists play with a sort of affectedly lilting and thin vibrato that doesn't match the instrument's sonority. Another memorable note struck byVolger was the daring rubato with which he played the second movement's main tune when it re-entered at the end of the movement. Here he lingered bravely over tastefully chosen downbeats and Chen seemed obliged to follow his lead.

I was worried that an over-familiarity with favorite recordings of the Sibelius 6th (namely those by Lorin Maazel and Paavo Berglund) would make it hard to appreciate Elder's reading of this little masterpiece. But just the opposite occurred: Elder launched into this taughtly melodic, alternatingly pensive and light-footed, profoundly unusual little masterpiece with a sense of rhythmic drive I've never heard. And Elder wisely let the sinuous, scalar, modal lines, rather than accompanying vamps, establish the work's sense of pace. This is a symphony with such a memorable, other-worldly repertoire of melodies that too many conductors allow themselves to linger with ill-fitting Romanticism over the "landmark" moments. Against this approach, Elder drove what was sadly a sometimes sluggish and unresponsive orchestra through these moments with a sense of beautiful inevitability, rather than heavy significance. This confirmed, for me at least, that he's a musician with an uncanny ability to truly work from within a piece of music, with interpretations that come pretty close to nailing what a composer has to say.