Coriolan Overture, Third Piano Concerto and the Fifth: Such a Beethoven program could turn out to be dignified, but not with a historically informed ensemble like the Mahler Chamber Orchestra under Andris Nelsons.
In the Isarphilharmonie, the predominantly young, almost equally male and female orchestra already set the overture under great electrification. However, the Fifth Symphony turned out to be a triumph. You could not only hear the enthusiasm that each phrase triggers in each individual, how much joy in playing and what high adrenaline output you could have measured in everyone. It was also possible to see how happily many faces beamed, with what fervor the double basses tugged at the strings, how cheeky the brass trumpeted out their tones, how every secondary voice became the main thing without ever pushing itself into the foreground.
When has one heard all the details so succinctly and clearly despite the rapid tempi, while always being forced under a tightly woven arc of suspense? This was certainly also due to the fabulous acoustics of the Isarphilharmonie, especially since a seat in row eleven is ideal for listening to a medium-sized ensemble.
At the end there was not only warm applause, as after each movement, but a collective cry of enthusiasm, which only found its equivalent in the applause after the third piano concerto in C minor, the long long was able to play more and more confidently and with more contrast. Here, too, the finale became an event that outshone everything. One felt that Lang absolutely needed such an orchestra that could bind his sharp impulses with a similar directness of sound, but with even more warmth. This was of course due to the sound of a modern concert grand piano, which can also be a percussion instrument, which Lang Lang never denied, although in the slow movement he also struck sensitive, soft and no less excitingly phrased tones.