Romy the Cat wrote:

Two hours after the end of the glorious Götterdämmerung from MET, I was sitting at the D row, center sit of Jordan Hall right in front of conducting podium of Boston Philiharmonic and Natalia Gutman. What can I say? I knew that Ms. Gutman is hell of a cellist. I knew that the concerto long and difficult but I did not expect THAT level of performance. I was the absolutely the best LIVE cello concert I heard, period. Natalia Gutman played in a way sloppy, not even sloppy but I would say without any particular care to her phrasing. She played like it was a dally concert for her (and I am sure it was) and she did invest more efforts in her play then you parking your car in your 20 years old driveway.  Some of the things he did I disagreed and would call them as “questionable” but here is Natalia Gutman’s genius come to play - whatever she did sound so phenomenally authetiek and beautiful that it clearly indicated the delta between us – the ordinary mortal and her. It was one of those concerts when the level of soloist was so far beyond the supporting orchestra that the orchestra was not even able to interact with soloist. It is not the Boston Philiharmonic played bad (the first violin section showed off some incredible interaction with Gutman’s cello) but it was clearly visible who runs the show.  It kind of fun to hear Prokofiev concerto with “defeated” orchestra as in this concerto cello shall fight with orchestra. The fight did not happen but it was rather Gutman very sparingly despise virtuosity and the virtuosity was not in her play the cello but how to do it in the best way with THIS orchestra. Gutman’s virtuosity has no single sign of shine, glitz, effectiveness or sentimentalism. It was rather virtuosity play with stunning reserve; it was in way funny to hear how simple, tasteful and brilliantly she was crashing through the most complex expressions of cello repertoire. I usually am not big fan of applauding after concerts, if I do it them seldom, shortly and very unwillingly. Here I found myself absolutely ecstatic and was applauding up to the pain in my arms… I left the consert after the Natalia Gutman play and I did not stay to listen the Boston Philiharmonic’s Brahms Second Symphony. It was a long day and after the Wagner I figured out that the lighting does not strike in the same spot trice…

In the end of the month the great Natalia Gutman plays with BPO in Boston again. This is THE chance to hear the greatest plays of our time live. She will be playing the same Shostakovich’s  Second Cello Concerto:

Saturday, April 30 @ 8pm - Jordan Hall
Sunday, May 1 @ 3pm - Sanders Theatre
Monday, May 2 @ 7pm - Sanders Theatre

For the folks outside of Boston here is an interesting tip. The WCRB-FM would like to butter up the public and it LOOKS LIKE tomorrow they will broadcast the Gutman’s live-to-tape perfomance of the Shostakovich’s  Concerto at 3PM Eastern time.  The New Englanders might to tune up at 99.5FM the other can hear online at 

http://www.wgbh.org/995/ (click listen live stream)


Below is Natalia Gutman performing Shostakovich Cello Concerto No.1 during rehearsal with the European Union Youth Orchestra (Concertgebouw, Summer 2009)



... and the same concert in Russia with Mikhail Shcherbakov.