Joshua Bell brings showmanship (and his own cadenzas!) to Mendelssohn in Baltimore

American composer Ellen Reid chose an evocative and prescient title for the work that opened a recent Baltimore Symphony Orchestra concert: When the World as You’ve Known It Doesn’t Exist. The New York Philharmonic premiered the work on 20th February 2020, less than three weeks before the coronavirus pandemic essentially shut down the globe. Talk about timing. Three years on, the classical music industry still struggles to claw its way back to before, and the disorienting soundscape created by Reid over the course of 10 agitated minutes can feel like a primal scream of all the frustrations that have built up as the unprecedented times just keep rolling along. Swirling violin lines are snuffed out by forceful percussion. A trio of amplified female singers (Clara Rottsolk, Meg Dudley and Jennifer Paz) spin out jagged, disorienting vocal lines. There is beauty to be found too, however fleeting, in the gossamer woodwinds. Conductor Anna Rakitina led a gripping performance that stirred a hauntingly familiar set of emotions.

The near-sellout crowd at Meyerhoff Hall likely wasn’t lured by new music though, however compelling it may be. They came to hear Joshua Bell, as evidenced by the massive applause he received before playing a single note. Bell delivered on showmanship and artistry in Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, always an arresting presence onstage, even when engaging in little more than active listening. He brought a klezmer flare to his self-devised cadenzas and matched Rakitina’s pleasantly light orchestral textures, sometimes attenuating his sound to a fine grain without coming close to inaudibility. Although known for flash, he brought elegance to the Andante and an energy to the Allegro molto vivace that was truly driven, not simply barnstorming. It was an utterly satisfying performance, one that really needed no encore – Bell had already left it all on the stage.

To close the concert, Rakitina treated the Enigma Variations like a tone poem. Directing without a score, she knit the fourteen miniatures together in ways that revealed the focus in Elgar’s instrumentations that cut across the composition: the humorous deployment of woodwinds, the doleful appearances of solo viola (principal Lisa Steltenpohl was consistently superb in these moments), the playful use of percussion to represent extremes of emotions. The famous Variation IX (Nimrod) swelled with a sense of immediacy that left a lump in my throat, especially in light of the skillful way that Rakitina limned the transition from the frivolous preceding variation (W.N.) without pause. Sometimes even the most familiar music can still conjure a sense of surprise. The performance built to a satisfying denouement with E.D.U., which heralded both the genius of an undervalued composer and the rise of an exciting young conductor.