Apart from the muggy summer, tension can be felt on both sides in the packed Herkulessaal on Thursday evening: in front of the stage, a sensation-hungry audience is waiting for Joana Mallwitz’ conducting debut in front of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, on stage Mallwitz himself becomes a source of tension and transmitter. With a firm footing and an unwaveringly strong center, the general music director of the Nuremberg State Theater contests a challenging programme, beginning with Richard Strauss’ “Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks”. Childlike, snotty brass interjections and seemingly effortless string parts belie Strauss’s complexity, which Mallwitz initially tries to counteract with a smile that is more stony than mischievous.
Janine Jansen elicits an incomparably intense tone from her muted Stradivarius
The maestra is much softer and more relaxed alongside the Dutch artist Janine Jansen, who presents Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major with remarkable timing and technical precision, without interrupting the overarching narrative. Her thickly applied vibrato at the beginning of the first movement may also distract from the tenderness of the piano tones, but in the lyrical “Canzonetta” Jansen elicits an incomparably intense tone from her muted Stradivarius. The violinist also demonstrates this special expression through reduction in the encore.
Like Jansen’s Bogenhaar, the concert master’s can no longer stand the tension of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. In the first movement, he leads the violins through the change in tempo skilfully presented by the flute with obvious joy in playing. Such tidy transitions are also due to Mallwitz’ unmistakably precise stroke. During the gracefully sung stepping dance in the second movement, the orchestra appears united and strong, Mallwitz hardly intervenes and rightly trusts, before a heated dance frenzy erupts towards the finale “con brio”. As before, the audience begins with thunderous applause at the closing note, as if they could no longer bear the suspense.