Lahav Shani, between the birds of Karajan and the catastrophe of Harnoncourt | Culture

A short time ago, the orchestra director (Tel Aviv, 36 years) conjugated the “bird flock” of Herbert von Karajan and the “catastrophe” of Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Maybe there are no more opposite images to extract the beauty of a score. That front to. But Shani combined both visions ideally in the slow movement of the Fifth Symphony of, at his concert with the Munich Philharmonic, last Monday, February 3 at the National Auditorium.

He started Andante cantabile, with no license with an inspired conjunction of the serious rope that propelled the beautiful trunk and inspired his dialogue with the clarinet and the oboe. Music flowed with the same naturalness with which a group of birds furrowed the sky. But, then Shani promoted each of the two climatic ascents risking the combination of a tempo that as soon as it encourages as it retains. And he turned the arrival at the quadruple forte (FFFF) summit at the most emotional moment of the night, without an apex of effectiveness.

The Israeli director has his own vision of Chaikovski’s symphony. It raises it as a very long symphonic poem, by suppressing the pauses between movements and delving into the lucid theme of destiny, which opens the score and impregnates it until the end, when it acquires a jubilant character. Shani presented himself with this concert in the prestigious cycles of Ibermusic, at the head of the Celibidache orchestra with which he visited these cycles on so many occasions and of which he will become a starter in the 2026-2027 season. It is another talent comparable to the fact that, where appropriate, it combines the titles of the Philharmonics of Rotterdam and Israel, while a brilliant pianist.

with its wide gesture without baton and its formal outfit without a tie or bow tie, after its triumph at the Lucena Festival also at the head of the Munich Philharmonic. Then he directed the Ninth Symphony from Bruckner and combined the facets of soloist and director in the BWV 1052 concert of Bach, which can be seen today Tuesday 4 at the National Auditorium. He is part of a Spanish tour that started last Sunday in Valencia with Chaikovski and will continue on Wednesday in Alicante, next to days 6 and 7 at the Canary Islands Festival, focused on Bruckner’s symphony.

The first Shani program in Madrid began with a delicious novelty. This is the Opening no. 2of, a work of 1834 of the most successful French composer of the first half of the nineteenth century, which supposed its first foray into the orchestral world and culminated with three symphonies between 1841 and 1847. The composition eludes the literary references of other oberturas contemporary and drink of the operatic influences of Y Meyerbeer, as well as the instrumentation of, paying special attention to the winds. It stands out for its effective contrasts and for a brilliant development section where the counterpoint imagination of its symphonies is attacked. However, the version of the Muniquesa orchestra was quite superficial and noisy, although it allowed to wear its admirable wood wind section.

Something better was the Concert for violin in my minorof, released in 1845, which culminated the first part. In this concert, Shani and the Bávara orchestra offered a perfect musical scaffolding to the American violinist of Korean descent, who acted in replacement of. However, the first and background games between the soloist and the accompaniment did not finish raising the composition of Mendelssohn. Yoo exhibited his beautiful sound and musicality, together with a powerful technique, in a practically impeccable version of the solo part (we are except for a small incident with the tresillos in the development of the first movement). The best of his performance came in the tiny and melancholic intermediate that connects the second and third movement, which endowed a rapturic air and naturally promoted the effervescence of the end. The violinist ended up appealing to her origins and, as a tip, touched an arrangement of the, which narrates.

The best of the night came in the second part with the aforementioned Symphony no. 5 of Chaikovski. Shani began with an exquisitely contemplative introduction, in which the clarinet soloist Kuti looked with the presentation of the theme of the destination, a programmatic aspect that is deduced from a strange annotation of April 1888 in one of the composer’s notebooks, that we can read in: “Introduction. Complete submission to the destination, or, what is the same, before the inscrutable designs of providence. ” But in the first movement everything sounded too content and exquisite, with hardly any sense of risk.

The magic came in the slow movement, as commented above, but continued in the two final movements. The waltz sounded very elegant, with a precise shadow of melancholy until the subtle incursion of the theme of destiny. But the other flash of the night arrived in the Finalewhich opened with a model introduction and continued leaning on the mordant of the serious rope and the metals. His interpretation re -combined the Karajan birds with the catastrophe of and put an end to the night with a perfect resolution of the final conflict of the work, where the good ones win in my older. It was not necessary to touch any tip.