Bellver: a program at the top

PalmaThe Tchaikovsky-Dogadin tandem was in charge of inaugurating this new edition of the Bellver Festival, as an appendix to the season of the Illes Balears Symphony Orchestra, in the incomparable setting, which is a cliché, but undeniable. Pablo Mielgo conducted the performance, who once again showed good chemistry with the soloist of the day. Sergei Dogadin had already played with the same accompanists on two previous occasions. In the 23/24 season, he performed the Concerto for Violin, by Alexander Glazunov, and the following season he was in charge of opening the Symphony's season with the Concerto for Violin. In Memory of an Angel, by Alban Berg. On Thursday, I want to suppose that with the Domenico Montagnana, from 1721, he offered us a more recognized piece than those mentioned, but with a higher degree of difficulty, as immense as it is excellent, with the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D major op. 35, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the only one that the Russian, who often didn't seem like it, composed for this instrument.

It goes without saying that any hint of originality with revolutionary pretensions, in its initial and initiatory moment, always generates a burst of insults from which the composer was not saved. For example, "it reeked in the ear," dedicated to him by the Austrian critic, born in Prague under the Habsburgs, Eduard Hanslick. Today, at its peak, it is one of those eight thousand musical pieces that needs no defense or praise. A classic, which perfectly combines aesthetic harmony with interpretative tightrope walking. A challenge that requires -"only"- an overdose of excellence for its execution. Although there was a minimal initial lack of control, the performance quickly settled down to become a musical monument of the dimensions and characteristics that it holds, and which are not few. Sergei Dogadin displayed all his skills, increasing his performance with a superb cadenza, amidst the notes of a mythical melody. Of a delicacy that is the hallmark of the house, the Canzonetta, the second movement; energetic and penetrating the third. Allegro vivacissimo, never more aptly said. Encores as expected. The audience on their feet.

As if that weren't enough, which is always a handicap, after such a famous and prestigious piece, it was Johannes Brahms's turn with his Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68, which some ill-intentioned people called "Beethoven's Tenth", when it surely owes as much, or more, to Wagner. Nevertheless, without forgetting the structures of the first and fourth movements, with its own, personal and inalienable stamp, Brahms in his purest form. But the imposing timpani opening took its toll, now an anecdote, because what its performance requires is an imposing sobriety, which is not an oxymoron but a fact. Perhaps a couple of players were missing to elevate the composition to its rightful place, but, in any case, Mielgo and the orchestra clearly showed the sobriety and rigor to round off a program at its peak.