Weilerstein, Minnesota Orchestra, Vänskä, Royal Albert Hall

Miserabilist Shostakovich is trumped by Bruckner's Fourth and an American cellist

by Igor ToronyilalicSaturday, 28 August 2010

Osmo Vänskä 'got his classy Minnesota Orchestra to lend their flexible legs to almost every vault required of them'

One usually has to wait until the fourth movement of a Bruckner symphony before one gets a decent, foot-tappin', knee-slappin' polka to dance to. But at last night's Prom Osmo Vänskä was jitterbugging - and, I think, even moonwalking - from the off, swinging his classy Minnesota Orchestra into the Fourth Symphony's opening fortissimo brass triplets like they were a seasoned jazz band, and making Bruckner boogie. Not the easiest of things to get this granitic old Austrian bumpkin to do.

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