Nagano Bows Out

One of the Bay Area’s most remarkable musical partnerships marked its ending on Thursday night at Zellerbach Hall. After 30 years of shared artistic growth, the Berkeley Symphony offered its final concert with Kent Nagano at the helm as music director. With the rest of the orchestra’s season given over to guest conductors auditioning for the job, this was Nagano’s final bow in the role, though he’ll be back to lead the orchestra’s new Berkeley Akademie chamber concerts next spring. Befitting the occasion, there were words of thanks, long ovations, reminiscences — of Frank Zappa and Olivier Messiaen visiting, the conductor appearing shoeless, and much more — a mayoral proclamation, and an unwieldy, four-foot-high bouquet delivered to the maestro. And there was plenty of music. As always, the program reflected Nagano’s special interests and current areas of focus. On the surface, with big works by Mozart and Bruckner, this seemed a surprisingly traditional bookend for the conductor’s tenure, with the exception of a brief but brilliant premiere. However, the concert proved to be a showcase for Nagano and the orchestra’s strongest traits, with older works sounding fresh and a new work played with verve and commitment. To mark the event, the orchestra commissioned a new work from Kurt Rohde, Bis Bald (Until soon), an electrifying, five-minute work that ended the program on a high note. This piece generates excitement immediately, with rapid repeated notes, string tremolos, and brief figures scattered throughout the orchestra. The music feels kaleidoscopic while moving forward with tremendous drive, then surprises by dying out with a quiet, open-ended feeling. This was a worthy tribute to a great partnership, and deserves to return in future performances. The program opened with a first-rate account of Mozart’s Symphony No. 41. The pacing of each movement had a rightness to it, building momentum through the performance and always finding room to breathe. The playing was lovely throughout, with an especially warm sound from the strings and the full orchestra blending sweetly, even as individual parts remained distinct. Particularly in the final movement, as Mozart’s compositional wizardry brought together the themes of the preceding movements, the music’s large-scale counterpoint sounded clear and vibrant, and moved forward with inexorable momentum while retaining its sense of grace.

A Bruckner Worth Its Weight

Bruckner’s hefty Symphony No. 7 filled the program’s second half, bringing to an end Nagano’s sampling of the composer’s symphonies in Berkeley, an effort that has lasted the better part of a decade. I haven’t always felt that this was the best use of this adventurous orchestra’s talents, but this performance made a convincing case both for the work at hand and for the importance of the project. As is the case with much of this composer’s music, the Seventh Symphony’s noble themes, bold proclamations, and foursquare construction can feel like listening to an overly sincere public speaker making one earnest point after another. Yet, from the opening of the enormous first movement, this was a performance of immediacy as well as subtlety. Nagano delineated Bruckner’s musical designs with great care and brought a coherent, convincing shape to each of the movements and their many subsections. The orchestration, too, which can seem blocky on first hearing, was revealed for the quality of its craft, though some disagreements in intonation between orchestra sections were scattered through the Adagio second movement, jumping out of an otherwise persuasive interpretation. The third movement Scherzo was beautifully played, as the surging orchestra created a tapestry-like effect beneath the powerful brass themes. The slower Trio featured some wonderfully rich string playing, as the expanded section adopted a more burnished sound for this work. At some stage in the fourth movement, the music, all sturdy architecture and earnest themes, passed the point where it was really entrancing, despite continued strong playing and Nagano’s right-on pacing. At the end of the day, I’m not sure this elephantine symphony can remain convincing all the way through its final moments, but I’m glad to have heard a performance that revealed new dimensions in the music and its many possibilities.