Kazushi Ono celebrated his birthday with a highly praised performance of Dvořák’s Stabat Mater with Brussels Philharmonic
Kazushi Ono conducted two performances of Dvořák’s Stabat Mater with Brussels Philharmonic and Vlaams Radiokoor, on 3 March in Kortrijk and 4 March in Brussels. The second performance coincided with his birthday and the orchestra celebrated by serenading him at the rehearsal and giving him cake afterwards.
Bachtrack gave the concert an excellent review:
‘Kazushi Ono, at the head of the Brussels Philharmonic, of which he became musical director last October, gives this masterpiece a very appropriate intensity and grandeur. Ono does not refuse to summon the thinnest pianissimos, but it is in the stronger nuances that he truly flourishes. The flexibility of the Belgian orchestra lends itself very well to the expanded palette of shades and colours desired by the maestro. It is also one of the notorious strengths of the Brussels Philharmonic: it is a formation capable of offering extremes fortissimos without ever losing anything in elegance or roundness. The Japanese conductor uses it, to the point of abusing it sometimes: singing soloists as well as the choir often find themselves limited in their nuances, or even completely covered by this comfortable orchestral mass. Despite this, Kazushi Ono’s relentless conduct through all this river work inevitably seduces us. Achieving such intensity and fervor even in the slightest phrasing, by also effectively mobilising more than a hundred musicians for almost an hour and a half is even a feat!’
Read the full review.
Photos: Wouter Van Vaerenbergh
Comentarii