Transatlantic Success – from Munich to New York

BSO and Denève at Carnegie Hall, New York

a standing ovation in the Carnegie Hall

Stéphane Denève has been criss-crossing the Atlantic ocean over the last two months, starting with a run of major performances in Stuttgart and Köln with the RSO before heading off to Boston for three concerts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the historic Symphony Hall in mid-February. Then it was back to Germany, where Denève made his début with the Munich Philharmonic… before flying back to the USA again for his début at the famous Carnegie Hall in New York (with the Boston Symphony Orchestra). Finally it was time to return to Stuttgart and the familiar faces of the RSO Stuttgart, where he has conducted a variety of programmes in March, including the german premiere of Magnus Lindberg’s Graffiti.

A schedule of Faustian proportions!

Despite over 150 appearances with nineteen different orchestras in North America, Friday 9 March was the first time Denève had conducted a concert at the famous old Carnegie Hall in New York. To mark the occasion, twenty friends from Scotland made the trip to the ‘Big Apple’ and the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s programme of Ravel, Stravinsky and Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony made for a memorable night for the audience (who gave an enthusiastic standing ovation) and drew favourable comparisons from reviewers:

In [Denève’s] hands, Ravel’s “Ma Mère l’Oye” (“Mother Goose”) shows what a great French orchestra Boston can still be, a half-century after the directorship of Charles Munch.

You can read the whole New York Times review here

Click the link below to read and/or download the review as a PDF:

The-Boston-Symphony-Orchestra-at-Carnegie-Hall-NYTimes

Harry Rolnick ConcertoNet.com

…Stéphane Denève… has a burgeoning reputation. And if last night’s performance is any indication, that reputation is not unfounded.

This was Mr. Denève’s first appearance in Carnegie Hall, and he started off not with a bang, but a whisper. The start of Ravel’s Mother Goose, painted with such delicacy, such meticulous control of the instruments, that one felt he was a French painter rather than a musician.

… Mr. Denève was at the height of his powers in that most popular of all Shostakovich symphonies. We have all heard marvelous performances of this work. (And I’m not thinking of the finale, which is failproof!) But Mr. Denève, again beginning almost imperceptibly, perhaps a little on the slow side, drove up the orchestra in a crescendo so subtle that we didn’t even realize how fervently the orchestra was playing until it was full upon us.

Read the whole review on ConcertoNet.com here

Click the link below to read and/or download the review as a PDF:

Concerto-Net

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Faust in Munich

Just ten days before this New York performance, Stéphane Denève had been making his conducting debut with the Munich Philharmonic and Chorus in three performances of Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust, featuring the legendary José Van Dam as Méphisto.

Helmut Mauró Süddeutsche Zeitung

Stéphane Denève lead the Munich Philharmonic from the beginning to a light-footed and vivid, sometimes almost rigorous narrative style. Denève succeeded convincingly with Auerbach’s roaring party room as well as with Margarethe’s silent hangover-scenes. He seemed to come very close to the intentions and the character of the composer Berlioz.

Click the links below to read all five newspaper reviews (in German) of the Munich concerts:

München Abendzeitung 28-February-2012

Münchner Merkur 27-February 2012 – Interview

Münchner Merkur 27-February 2012 – Review

Klassik.com 28-February-2012 Page 1 Page 2

Süddeutsche Zeitung 29-February-2012

You can find out where Stéphane Denève will be conducting next in the concerts calendar, or look back over where he has been in the concerts archive.