Torino - Andrés Orozco Estrada conducts RAI Torino in Rossini, Mozart and Berlioz with Michael Barenboim as soloist

There were some famous musical names associated with Orchestra Sinphonica della RAI, Torino in last night’s programme. Previous conductors of the orchestra had surnames Pretre and Sinopoli and the night’s soloist was a Barenboim. The current principal conductor of Orchestra Sinphonica della RAI, Torino is Andrés Orozco Estrada and it was he who directed them in this concert in Alicante’s ADDA auditorium.

The concert began with one of the most well-known and rousing of Rossini’s overtures. Everyone knows the theme of the William Tell Overture’s final section, but Rossini was always episodic in his compositional style and the quiet sections that preceded allowed the orchestra to show off some of its solo playing. Starting a concert with the sound of a solo cello is hardly likely to be a showstopper, but that is clearly what Rossini wanted for his master work, perhaps indicating that all heroes have first to be born and many of them humbly.

Michael Barenboim was then soloist in Mozart K218 Violin Concerto. This, especially after the tutti at the end of the William Tell Overture was quiet, playful, witty and precise. I can never imagine that Mozart, even as a nineteen-year-old was taking his audience seriously when he wrote these notes. I always feel that the phrase “This is what they can cope with” must have been running through the composer’s mind. Basically, I don’t trust Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It has been a lifelong relationship, and there have been undoubted pleasures along the way.

Michael Barenboim and the orchestra’s playing, however, left nothing to be desired. It was sophisticated, accurate, witty and cute in places, secure and reflective in others. The composer’s ability to balance the solo part in the context of the orchestral accompaniment is a real achievement, for this orchestral part is no mere accompaniment, it presents a real dialogue with the soloist. Michael Barenboim gave the audience an encore of a movement of solo Bach in acknowledgment of warm applause.

The second half featured one work, Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique. I confess the Berlioz is another composer whose music remains utterly baffling to me. It remains spectacularly baffling, however. Andrés Orozco Estrada had the third movement begin with woodwind played from high in the royal box, thus rendering the sound “far off”. The tubular bells that feature in the final movement gave a special sonority that I don’t recall from other performances of the work. But for someone who made his name for his orchestration to have called for two harps, just to keep them silent for most of the time, is beyond imagination. Perhaps he wrote the parts and then forgot about them. The orchestral playing was superb throughout, however, especially the muted horns, the brass, percussion and woodwind. Passages in the central movement were surely written by Mahler, sixty years before their time.

The orchestra offered a little piece of Italy to this audience in Spain as an encore. The Intermezzo from Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana is a superb way to follow the over-the-top Berlioz.