New York Times OSL Carnegie

Oct 25, 2013

“Big things are expected of this exuberant Spanish artist,” raves The New York Times following Pablo Heras-Casado and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s appearance at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday evening. While the pairing of Mendlessohn’s Overture to A Midsummer’s Night Dream with Britten’s Serenade for Horn, Tenor, and Strings sparked curiosity prior to the concert, the performance left no doubts: “the performance of the Mendelssohn overture was so good, so glowing, transparent and effortless, that all thoughts of why we were hearing it slipped away.” The Mendelssohn Overture “turned out to be an inspired idea. Mr. Heras-Casado chose the piece, which vividly evokes the fantastical world of Shakespeare’s comedy, to set the mood for the work that followed, Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, with the tenor Ian Bostridge as soloist.”

Pablo and the Orchestra brought fresh insight to Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony, which followed in the second half of the program. “Mr. Heras-Casado conducted Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 9 in E flat (1945) in an incisive and colorful performance that, for all its vitality, revealed the ambiguity of this work.” Times critic Anthony Tommassini continued in his review of the Ninth Symphony, admiring how “Mr. Heras-Casado and the players captured the tension beneath the frothy surface of the first movement and the mysterious, even creepy quality of the slow movement. The madcap presto and the pompous introduction to the spirited finale also came across as curiously ambiguous.”

“The orchestra sounded terrific,” wrote The New York Times. “This match of maestro and musicians seems just right.”