Music Reviews : Masur, Gewandhaus at Chandler Pavilion

The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra is easy to underestimate. This is not a virtuoso ensemble that impresses through sheer sparkling technique and lavish sound. The Gewandhaus makes its points in a quiet way, through its mellowness, blend and subtlety of statement.

These are unusual qualities to feature, especially considering that two of the works on its program Tuesday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion normally operate as virtuoso showpieces for the great orchestras of the world.

In a suite from Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet,” melody, for once, proved the focus rather than orchestration and bombast, with music director Kurt Masur dovetailing themes as they passed between instrumental groups, creating purposeful phrases even through changes of color and harmony. Local details remained subsidiary, and brilliance of timbre was never emphasized, even in the many woodwind solos.

Though the brass proved occasionally ill-behaved, the strings revealed a remarkable unity of tone and inflection, while the woodwinds insinuated themselves behind them.

Hans Werner Henze’s “Seven Love Songs” for Cello and Orchestra (1986) served as centerpiece to the program, with principal cellist Jurnjakob Timm as soloist.

Cast in Henze’s trademark eclectic manner, the work is a setting of unnamed English poems stripped of their words, the cellist as vocalist. With the soloist offering tame virtuosity and noodling melody, and the orchestra rustling in a mishmash of styles as backdrop, “Seven Love Songs” is a pleasant, colorful piece--played securely by Timm and the orchestra--but at nearly half an hour, diffuse in effect.

The concert concluded with Strauss’ “Till Eulenspiegel” in a wonderfully coy reading, one that suggested the hero’s feints and dodges rather than his slapstick pranks.