Blomstedt waited. And then he rewarded listeners. Throughout the piece, the conductor and pianist Leif Ove Andsnes tempted fate, creating any number of pools of serenity whose musical countenance could have been destroyed by an errant cough. Yes, the second movement was incredibly slow. This was an act of daring. Stretching the canvas of time tissue-thin makes it hard for wind players to sustain sound, and the listener can begin to lose connections between notes. But it is marked "largo," after all, and it held together. Blomstedt made modest, smart gestures in all the right places. Andsnes created poetry of the quietest sort. Something diaphanous and dangerously delicate filled the hall, and triumphed.
Andsnes, for me, was a revelation. He has always come across as a foursquare, solid musician. Here, he was that and much more in Beethoven's alternately stealthy and euphoric first movement. In the technique department, the Norwegian pianist deployed shades of articulation to emotional ends. Runs and arpeggios were glassine and pure, while some of the left-hand work was marvelously dry, as if emulating a string pizzicato. His playing is utterly refined, the same soundscape inhabited by Blomstedt. In careful use of emphasis and drama, they are cut from the same cloth.
The conductor's suit was that of a schoolmaster in Beethoven's Symphony No. 3. Unlike the sophisticated revolution within a revolution that Vladimir Jurowski brought to the score on the orchestra's last outing with it, in 2010, Blomstedt was sturdy in his leadership, pragmatic in his tempos, and seemed mostly interested in conveying the related qualities of order and rightness. It all worked, often beautifully, perhaps just as much because of the rounded sound quality of musicians such as flutist David Cramer.
Blomstedt is visually a minimalist, but he did grant the viewing public one significant gesture. In the first movement, where Beethoven deployed that famous fistful of dissonant chords, Blomstedt swung his arms left and right with each shattering repeat of the same cluster, as if hitting an object with a baseball bat. Sometimes, even the schoolmaster needs a little theater to make his point.
Additional performance:
8 p.m. Saturday in Verizon Hall, Broad and Spruce Streets. Information: 215-893-1999, www.philorch.org. Contact music critic Peter Dobrin at 215-854-5611 or pdobrin@phillynews.com. Read his blog at www.philly.com/artswatch.
