Word: dohnanyi
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Throughout "Ganymed," Dohnanyi kept a close eye on Baer, and so achieved the evening's fullest blend of vocal and orchestral sonority. The ascending melodic and harmonic figures of the music succeeded in evoking Goethe's poem about the beautiful boy snatched up into heaven. Baer and the strings went high and stayed there for an excitingly long time...
...Standchen" should have been the prettiest of the set, but Dohnanyi's tempo was too fast. It made the song's tenderness debonair. But the last song, "An Schwager Kronos," was perfect. Baer kept close to the text, and the orchestra's playing was wonderfully subdued, until the triumphant final fanfare, which sounded better in the horns than it ever could on a piano. The music was so, compelling that it more than made up for the few previous disappointments. Baer got the loud and abundant applause he deserved...
...When Dohnanyi came onstage after intermission, it was clear that he would conduct Mahler's first symphony without the score. That anyone could know such an immense work by heart was hard to imagine until his masterful interpretation began. A reduced version of the orchestra, mostly strings, had performed the Schubert, but now that all the musicians filled the stage Doh- nanyi was no less in control...
...Dohnanyi delivered on the second movement's promise of a tempo "with force, but not too fast." He made it by turns sweetly waltz-like and aggressively scherzando. Again, it was wonderful to watch the principals communicate so flawlessly with each other...
...movement of the four, and the one in which a mediocre performance will lose the audience most quickly. It was again the unity of the strings that put this one over the top. The brass and winds, too, played energetically without over-looking nuances. In one particularly affecting moment, Dohnanyi appeared to close his eyes and put his hand over his heart. The orchestra performed the penultimate passage so brightly that the coda seemed superfluous...