New York Classical Review

The Vienna Royal Orchestra is a chamber-sized string orchestra with a title that evokes the musical and social depths of history, of the accouterments of the aristocracy. But there’s a generic quality to the name as well, with aristocracy and geography as a vague brand. Vienna is central to classical music history, but which Vienna? Mahler’s? Schoenberg’s?

Tuesday night in Carnegie Hall, it was Mozart’s. The orchestra, with conductor Christopher Joonmoo Lee and guest pianist Tian Jiang, has the charter to preserve “the warmth, clarity, and balance associated with the central European orchestral tradition.” The ensemble was booked into Carnegie by the organization Lab 38, which states as its goal, “to open U.S. stages to international stars”—Carnegie being a curious venue for that since it hosts international musicians nearly every night

To demonstrate something, the orchestra brought Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik, K. 525, his marvelous Piano Concerto No. 23, K. 488, in an arrangement by Ignaz Lachner, the K. 136 D Major Divertimento and, at the end, Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings in C Major, Op. 48. This was also all intended to honor Mozart’s 270ᵗʰ birthday, another bland, inoffensive goal. Though, promoting Mozart added to the minor tragedy of the evening.

This was a poor performance from an orchestra that, at least Tuesday night, sounded mostly amateurish. Their blandness and stylishness matched the generic branding around them, and turned Mozart into the kind of empty heuristic for high-class taste that is the worst aspect of classical music culture. This may have been driven by tired thinking, but the playing was of such low quality that it couldn’t really convey any thinking at all.

The attack and articulation of the famous opening statement of Eine kleine Nachtmusik was sloppy. In the first movement violins and lower strings had two different ideas about tempo and where the downbeat was, and intonation in all the strings, especially the violins, was a constant mess all evening. Phrasing was plain bad, with no one together on the quality of accents and articulation, few of the musicians playing the same rhythms, and constant cheating in faster runs by smearing the notes.

This wasn’t just a problem with faster music; the second movement Andante was just as bad, with the same problems, just coming slower. This also wasn’t just an issue with the opening Serenade–almost the whole concert was like this.

The single exception to the grim performances was the concerto, entirely because of Jiang’s fine playing. He had a brilliant touch, precise, ringing tone, and the insight and confidence to leave judicious amounts of space between notes and after phrases. His tempos were so even and smooth they laid a welcome foundation, and elicited some of the clarity that was missing up to that point. 

Mozart is supposed to sing, and Jian had it singing. The orchestra went their own way, seemingly incapable of playing and listening to the soloist at the same time. It was rewarding to focus on Jiang; his playing in the second movement, some of the most beautiful and moving music Mozart composed, was full of lovely phrasing and feeling.

He also provided the most entertainment of the evening. His encore was his own arrangement of what he called, “Italian melodies,” starting with “Nessun dorma” and modulating upward through multiple climaxes. The audience responded with a throbbing ovation.

The Divertimento and Tchaikovsky Serenade after intermission reached occasional levels of adequacy, meaning some in-tune major and minor chords, some ensemble togetherness, some phases that began and ended together. The Tchaikovsky Serenade had mostly the right notes in the first movement, though a limited dynamic range. This orchestra has a small sound and can’t produce much contrast between forte and piano.

The middle movements were atrocious, though, and the slow opening of the finale barely more than comatose. Perhaps there are aristocrats behind this orchestra, but there’s nothing Viennese about their playing.