The Concert Hall Zurich was slackly filled last Thursday evening – unusually, it must be said – as the Academic Orchestra Zurich performed its semester concert. The European Football Championship seemed to stand in serious competition to classical music in academic circles, too. Naturally, this did not stop the conductor, Johannes Schläfli, and his "team" from starting the concert by attacking "Finlandia" from Jean Sibelius. The orchestra convincingly conjured up the gloomy, menacing mood at the beginning, but the nebulous atmosphere, partially justified in this section, continued through the entire piece. The energetic termination of the score did not do much to change this. It was a pity because this hymn actually offers the possibility, for example, of pure indulgence. Perhaps the aim was to distance the evening's performance from the football hymns?

Rich range of sound

It is not only in football, however, that individual star players can motivate an entire team. As the soloist, Ina Dimitrova, began to play the violin concert it quickly became clear that a creative and determinant will was at work here that transmitted itself to the orchestra. Already the intervention of this brilliant violinist was rendered in a beautifully sallow tone. But this was only one shade of her varied and expressive range of sound. As the concert progressed Dimitrova demonstrated her talent with regard to both timbre and interpretation. Even when she arrived at the series of arpeggios at the end of the first movement a development could be discerned. With penetrating glances into the orchestra Dimitrova challenged the musicians to follow her, which they wholeheartedly did. Whether during the middle movement, with the sighs from the woodwind section, at the beginning or the stirring movement at the end, the academic musicians faithfully complemented the soloist.

She gave an impressive rendering of the violin concert from Jean Sibelius: Ina Dimitrova. (Picture: Ueli Strebel) large

"Knowledge of the instruments"

After the break the programme continued with Schostakowitsch's 10th symphony, which, according to the composer, is a musical interpretation of Stalin. There was much to hear, broodiness, malignancy, ponderousness, noisiness and, very occasionally, merriness. The listener also learned just how many different moods instruments could be brought to express, whether it was the deep flutes of the opening movement or the high melancholy bassoon in the final one. The end of the moderato with the piccolo, while not unusual in its interpretation, was beautifully executed with a rainbow-like luminosity.

It is possible that the composer used the many repetitions of the same themes to evoke a certain penetrating emotion, but in this piece of Schostakowitsch the question sometimes arises of whether more variation could have been brought into it with an appropriate interpretation. If one had to add any criticism to the – on balance convincing – performance of the orchestra, it would be directed at the scarcity of dynamic shadings or variations. It became very loud very fast. Perhaps we can draw a parallel to football here, too, when, towards the end of the game, a certain tiredness creeps in. One must not take this comparison too far, because there were no losers in the Concert Hall, as the undivided applause at the end of the concert proved.