MUSIC REVIEW : Orchestral Brilliance From Cleveland

Americans love their Best Games. We live by qualitative lists--rating and ranking movies, cars, detergents, wardrobes, scientists, journalists, refrigerators, politicians, ballclubs and recordings with equal, stubbornly constant zeal.

It is a silly game, but someone has to play it. Even in the arts.

When it comes to orchestras, we traditionally think of the Big Five: New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and Cleveland (not necessarily in that order). Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and San Francisco usually follow as upstart afterthoughts.

One of these decades, the perceptions may change. At the moment, New York, Philadelphia and Chicago are in the state of directorial flux, and Boston seems to be in the doldrums. That may leave Cleveland alone at the top.

The evidence was persuasive Tuesday night at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, where, after a five-year absence, the Cleveland Orchestra made a welcome return under the auspices of the beleaguered Philharmonic Society. Christoph von Dohnanyi chose a bravely sophisticated program and, under his no-nonsense leadership, the orchestra played it with pervasive flair, not to mention precision and urgency.

Just when we had begun to fear that Segerstrom Hall suffers from a chronic case of acoustical mush, Cleveland comes along and restores the faith. The sonic ambience still seems overly resonant, but, on this happy occasion, the instrumental choirs emerged full-bodied and impeccably balanced. The timbres meshed perfectly, and one could savor an acutely defined ensemble presence.

Perhaps there aren’t any bad halls after all, just bad orchestras.

Now in his seventh year with Cleveland (his ninth if we include time spent as music-director designate), Dohnanyi knows his players, and they know him. He doesn’t have to do much emoting or dancing on the podium to convey his interpretive wishes--that wouldn’t be his style, anyway--and the solving of technical problems can be taken virtually for granted.

Unlike some of his glamorous, conspicuously perspiring colleagues, Dohnanyi conducts the orchestra, not the audience. He cares most about the meaning and the structure of the music at hand, but he never slights such surface advantages as crisp articulation and high polish. His values honor the lofty tradition--and legacy--of George Szell.

The program on Tuesday (one of two assembled for this road trip) opened with Beethoven’s “Egmont” overture, the rhetoric projected with grandiose nobility that never precluded urgency. For once, the massed strings phrased as one, with every subtle nuance in place, every pianissimo fastidiously observed.

The program ended with the glorious sensuality of Richard Strauss’ “Ein Heldenleben.” Here, Dohnanyi managed to sustain surging passions amid rich, vibrant textures without wallowing in gush. He moved briskly and knowingly through the sprawl.

Other conductors may bring more sentimental majesty to this potentially vulgar challenge. Few can match this conductor’s heroic decorum.

For the centerpiece on the program, Dohnanyi made a relatively daring choice: Shulamit Ran’s Concert Piece. This bracing, 14-minute exploration of dynamic violence received its premiere in 1971, Zubin Mehta conducting the Israel Philharmonic in Tel Aviv. The composer was a precocious 21 at the time.

The Concert Piece is a colorful, mildly abrasive vehicle for a frenetic pianist (who occasionally moves to the celesta) and a virtuoso orchestra that can juggle vast chordal blocks in rapidly shifting, asymmetrical meters. Ran succumbed, here and there, to modernist cliches, but she manipulated her resources with uncanny authority and obvious promise.

That promise was fulfilled, not incidentally, when her mellower, more introspective Symphony won the Pulitzer Prize this year. For some reason, that salient accomplishment was ignored in the program annotation.

Alan Feinberg, a celebrated specialist in keyboard esoterica, tinkered and pounded his way through the solo lines with superb facility. The orchestra made a mighty, edgy, propulsive noise, as needed.

Orange County is not noted for its exposure to--or sympathy for--anything experimental. Nevertheless, the large audience applauded with stoic politesse.