Word: dohne
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...Dohnányi makes a strong entrance leading a proud orchestra...
When the Cleveland Orchestra announced that Christoph von Dohnányi would become its new music director beginning this season, he seemed an unlikely choice. Christoph von who? The German-born conductor, 55, grandson of Hungarian Composer Ernst von Dohnányi, had made his career in Germany not principally as an orchestral maestro but as an opera conductor and administrator, most recently at the Hamburg State Opera. He had a reputation as a 20th century music specialist, a distinction that has little appeal at the American box office. By contrast, the Cleveland Orchestra is one of the proudest...
...judge by the evidence so far, the answer is yes. After an inevitable letdown during the two-year hiatus between Maazel and Dohnányi, when various guest conductors took over, the future looks bright. The new partnership is currently basking in acclaim, inspiring hopes of a return to the glory days of Szell. Ticket sales are up: Severance Hall, the orchestra's home, is 95% subscribed. The orchestra, possessing the richest, most European sound of any U.S. ensemble, is playing at the top of its formidable form again. No one is happier than Dohnanyi. Says he: "Being...
...Dohnányi's strength lies in warm but unsentimentalized interpretations of an essentially Central European repertoire. His love of contemporary music is already clear in his Cleveland programming: on a U.S. tour last month, he offered a ravishing performance of Arnold Schoenberg's unfinished atonal oratorio, Die Jakobsleiter (Jacob's Ladder), and an impassioned reading of Alban Berg's twelve-tone Violin Concerto, with Soloist Itzhak Perlman. The most recent Severance Hall program featured the late-Romantic composer Hans Pfitzner's Violin Concerto, a work rarely heard outside Germany. Yet Dohnanyi is also strong...
Although the Clevelanders played well under the rather remote Maazel, neither they nor the city renewed the intense personal commitment they had to Szell and may have with Dohnányi. "We're still on our honeymoon," cautions Kenneth Haas, the orchestra's general manager. "But there is no way you can escape the electricity among the musicians...