Fill-ins hit the spot for BSO at Tanglewood

July 27, 2010|David Weininger, Globe Correspondent

LENOX — The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s summer of substitutes continued over the weekend at Tanglewood. Last month Herbert Blomstedt was tapped to replace an ailing Seiji Ozawa in Saturday’s all-Brahms concert. Then, late last week, Peter Serkin withdrew as soloist in Brahms’s First Piano Concerto, citing illness; his short-notice replacement was the Swiss-born pianist Gilles Vonsattel. James Levine, of course, is out all summer, and his spot on the podium for Sunday’s all-Strauss concert was taken by Hans Graf. As they used to say at the ballpark, you need a scorecard to keep the players straight.

Vonsattel’s last-minute appearance in a piece as difficult as the Brahms must have been unnerving for the pianist. Yet he acquitted himself well, playing this dense, angular piece with an introspective, lyrical approach whose clarity and light touch even in the concerto’s thickest passages were surprising and welcome.

Blomstedt set a slow, even lugubrious tempo in the first movement, perhaps in deference to the newcomer. But the orchestra’s sound was sloppy, entrances were ragged, and the whole movement seemed like a performance without a plan. Happily, the meditative slow movement fared better, and the fleet, dashing finale better still. Vonsattel, winner of the 2002 Naumburg piano competition, is scheduled to begin an appointment at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in the fall, which hopefully betokens further local appearances.

After intermission, Blomstedt led a genial, untroubled reading of Brahms’s Second Symphony. The orchestra was in better form, save for a few strident passages from the brass. Oboist John Ferrillo offered lovely solos.

Sunday’s program was largely a repeat of a pension fund benefit concert conducted by Levine in February. Cellist Lynn Harrell reprised his role as soloist in Richard Strauss’s tone poem “Don Quixote,’’ playing the part of Cervantes’s would-be knight with generous tone and rich characterization of the Don’s misadventures. And he appeared to be having a ball doing so. If you’d forgotten which of Quixote’s misadventures was being portrayed in the music, you could almost tell from Harrell’s delightfully expressive facial gestures.

This is probably the most richly colored of Strauss’s orchestral works, and a long list of individuals contributed to an excellent performance. At the top was the BSO’s invaluable principal violist, Steven Ansell, in the role of Sancho Panza. Other standouts included bass clarinetist Craig Nordstrom, tenor tubist Mike Roylance, and concertmaster Malcolm Lowe. But the achievement was a collective one, and Graf’s leadership was enthusiastic and expert.