The night opened with Nielsen's brief "Helios" Overture and ended with Brahms's Fourth Symphony, but the positions of the two composers might have been more profitably reversed. Brahms's symphonies already have a ubiquitous presence on BSO seasons. At the same time, Blomstedt is one of the few conductors who have probed deeply into Nielsen's underappreciated body of work - he has even recorded his complete orchestral music with the Danish Radio Symphony. A far more exciting program on this occasion would have placed a Brahms overture as the curtain-raiser and offered one of Nielsen's viscerally forceful symphonies as the evening's dramatic main event.
Still, Blomstedt tried to make the most of the "Helios," which is itself a rarity performed only twice before in the BSO's history. Written in 1903 during Nielsen's travels through Greece, it is a richly atmospheric work that attempts to conjure the sun rising out of the darkness, tracing its path across the sky, and setting into the sea. Last night it began with a magical sense of repose, the sound drifting up almost imperceptibly from the lowest depths of the string section. Blomstedt tried hard to manage the work's dynamics in minute increments but as the sun approached high noon balances became far less precise, textures grew murky, and the music's spell was broken.
One of the highlights of the evening was the understated keyboard elegance of pianist Richard Goode, who gave a graceful account of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 18, with its ruminative slow movement and sparkling finale.
After intermission the Brahms had its effective moments but there were also plenty of stretches where the interpretation felt unfocused and the orchestra sounded less polished. Entrances and exits at times lacked their usual crispness and the brass playing was uneven. It was hard to avoid thinking back to the more persuasively rendered Brahms Second that Levine led last month. Blomstedt would have avoided any comparisons - and probably electrified the house - with a Nielsen symphony.
