23-10-2000
Donatella Flick Conducting Competition Barbican, 23 October 2000.

London Symphony Orchestra. Barbican Centre.
Seen & Heard, 23th October 2000

It is somewhat ironic that the single performance which stood out (and still resonates in the mind after the concert) should actually be a performance of the Egmont Overture. This was not the best performance of any of the works on offer during the evening, but it was by some distance the most fascinating. Pablo Gonzalez, the 25-year old Spanish conductor, opened the concert with a performance that was as idiosyncratic as any I have ever heard but which compelled attention from first note to last. With enormous ritardandos accompanying the weightiest of opening chords his Egmont was conceived on the wildest scale. Beethoven's tempi were all but ignored, but the balance he achieved of woodwind against strings was exemplary. He conjured from the LSO phrasing that was spellbinding and a depth of string tone that put more traditional Beethoven orchestras to shame. Many conductors achieve precisely this effect by allowing time for the orchestra to enter after the conductor's beat; with Gonzalez one was almost aware of time being suspended so long breathed was the space between his beat and the orchestra's entry. Nothing prepared us for the coda which was demonic - fiery, impassioned and red-blooded. It reminded me of the young Celibidache conducting a Berlin Philharmonic in the post war ruins of Berlin, or Koussevitsky's legendary film of the same work. Enigmatic it may have been, even controversial, but it more than confirmed Mr Gonzalez as a conductor of rare intellect.

                                                                                                                                               Marc Bridle