Beethoven cast an enormous shadow over the composers of his era, as well as those who followed; Brahms, who was particularly intimidated by the master, despaired of ever writing a symphony. “You have no idea,” he told a friend, “how the likes of us feel when we hear the tramp of a giant like him behind us.”
Intimidation eventually yielded to inspiration — which, according to Berkeley Symphony music director Joana Carneiro, was the theme of the orchestra’s concert Thursday evening at Zellerbach Hall.
Leading an energized performance of Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Carneiro, who seems to have inspired the 40-year-old orchestra and its audience, too, made Brahms sound vital and, yes, inspired all over again.
Brahms was just one of the highlights in Thursday’s event, the final subscription concert in the Berkeley Symphony’s 2009/2010 season. The program also included the West Coast premiere of Jorg Widmann’s Beethoven-inspired Con Brio, and a first-rate performance of Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, with Jessica Rivera as soloist. In all, it was an impressive finale to a season that introduced Carneiro as one of the most promising young podium artists to grace the Bay Area in recent memory.
There was no mistaking Carneiro’s dynamism in the second half’s performance of the Brahms symphony, which emerged sounding surprisingly fleet and fervent under her direction. The conductor’s unbridled enthusiasm for Brahms’ genius resulted in an uncommonly fresh reading of a work often rendered turgid by conductors bent on preserving its monumental aspects.
Contrast and cohesion were the principal concerns in the turbulent first movement, and the details — the eloquent voicings of the woodwinds, the tawny contributions of the cellos — emerged in striking relief. The Andante was delicately etched, with Concertmaster Franklyn D’Antonio lending incisive tone to the movement’s tender violin solo. Carneiro achieved particularly vivacious results in the scherzo-like third movement; she took the opening pages of the finale — one of Brahms’ most ardent tributes to Beethoven — at a leisurely pace, allowing the movement to build organically and finally achieving a fine synthesis of urgency and nobility.
Before intermission, Widmann’s Con Brio honored Beethoven in a more humorous vein. Commissioned by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and conductor Mariss Jansons, who gave the score’s first performance in Munich in 2008, the German composer incorporates material from Beethoven’s 7th and 8th symphonies in a kaleidoscopic scheme. Familiar phrases are sliced and diced, leaving jagged edges everywhere: bows strike strings, woodwinds chirp in protest and brass instruments stutter in a series of tense episodes broken by abrupt cuts. The piece ends quietly, but it produces a small universe of sound throughout its 12-minute span — all of which may make it the ideal curtain-raiser for audiences arriving late, settling in, unwrapping candies and clearing their throats. Carneiro and the orchestra gave it a glittering, aptly emphatic performance.
In between, there was Rivera as the sublime soloist for Barber’s Knoxville. The American soprano, who made a memorable appearance with this orchestra in Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Five Images After Sappho earlier in the season, returned Thursday in brilliant form, effortlessly projecting the sweetness and longing in Barber’s fragrant settings of texts by poet James Agee. Rivera has it all — radiant tone, crystalline top notes, and the ability to communicate the essence of the texts in purely dramatic terms; her performance was both technically secure and ineffably touching. For her part, Carneiro took a panoramic approach, blending silky string tone, silvery woodwinds and burnished brass to painterly effect. If she occasionally covered her soloist, it scarcely mattered — Rivera’s prodigious gifts would stand out in a cast of thousands.
Thursday’s concert was the final event of the subscription season, but the Berkeley Symphony has one more concert on the spring calendar: conductor laureate Kent Nagano returns May 20 to conduct the Berkeley Akademie at First Congregational Church. Those piqued by Con Brio will have a chance to hear more of Widmann; the program includes the composer’s Versuch uber die Fuge, Beethoven’s Quintet in E-flat for Piano and Winds, and Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A, with Widmann as soloist.