James Gaffigan praised for New Year’s concerts with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin
James Gaffigan led Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin with the Roncalli Circus in two New Year’s concerts at Berlin’s Tempodrom (Photo credit: Mutesouvenir / Kai Bienert)
You have to be a clown: As usual, the DSO celebrates the turn of the year together with Circus Roncalli in the Berlin Tempodrom. This time James Gaffigan conducts.
By Isabel Herzfeld
Der Tagesspiegel
January 1, 2021
The DSO’s New Year’s Eve contribution is short and sweet: What is certainly owed to Corona on the one hand, increases the pleasure in brisk succession to the highest intensity on the other. Above all is the joy of finally being able to perform again with artists from the Roncalli Circus in the Tempodrom. Even the - slightly reduced - audience is ready to have fun like never before, clapping in time and applauding violently to acrobatic highlights.
It is less spectacular than poetic and humorous. Conductor James Gaffigan jumps out of the curtained glass case, mistaking the magician Peter Valance, and immediately transfers this momentum to the orchestra, which has already started with John Williams’ “Olympic Fanfare”, but is now being put on the curb. The US-American, freshly minted Music Director in Valencia, animates the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin to the most precise virtuosity and does not skimp on expressive gestures that communicate with the stage.
“Ode to Joy” on the xylophone
Whether the tarantella rhythms from Borodin's “Polowetz dances” to Danil Lysenko's whirling juggling with eleven white hoops, the overturning string movements in Ligeti's early “Concert Românesc” to the crazy somersaults of the group “Jump'n Roll” or even the build-up of tension in Miklós Rosza's “Parade” from the score for “Ben Hur”, before Robin Valencia is hurled through the arena as a living cannonball in a high arc - music and show are always precisely coordinated, cheering each other on.
Anniversary of the DSO Berlin: Forever young and wild
A nice break when the clown Popey "interprets" the inevitable "joyful theme" from Beethoven's 9th Symphony by hitting small balls on a bottle "xylophone" before it sounds in the orchestra. The “Méditation” from Massenet's opera “Thaȉs”, when the couple Vanessa & Sven perform their pas de deux on a white, candle-surrounded grand piano and concertmaster Wei Lu and solo cellist Valentin Radutiu contribute melting melodies, is also of gentle, not unkitschy irony. Wei Lu shines beforehand with Vittorio Monti's fiery “Csárdás”, Radutiu with Paganini's variations on Rossini's “Moses in Egypt”. So one can get over the fact that the saxophonist Jess Gillam was unable to travel from Great Britain due to stricter quarantine regulations - the mixture of classical and pop is also extremely successful this time.
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