Decrescendo.net · 21.10.2024
[...] Here, together with conductor Nayden Todorov, with whom he says he loves to partner, he relied mainly on a constant, expansive dialogue with the orchestra, with the solos highlighted and prescribed by the composer within it, which counterpointed and further coloured the great musician's magnificent instrumental conduct. Here I cannot fail to mention Kristina Yumerska (horn), Kremena Acheva (flute), Ivanka Fordiani (bassoon), Dimitar Moskovski (clarinet), Yasen Enchev and Valchan Valchanov (oboes). Their solo contributions in the first movement of the work were flexible and controlled, focused into the impressive metamorphoses in Joshua Bell's sound, which was striking even in the fastest ascending and descending cascades of tone through his ability to differentiate the individual groups precisely through instantaneous, specific colouring, which added a distinct layer of meaning to a solo part intended to be merely virtuosic in texture. [...] What he achieved was matched by a conductor and orchestra who were active, attentive partners to this musician, so powerful a storyteller. [...] [...] The symphony pleases not only music lovers but musicians as well, which is true also of the orchestra performing it. And so, it seems to me, it was in the Philharmonic's performance. One always senses in the hall when the orchestra's attention to the music it is playing is something special. Of course, the encounter with a figure such as Joshua Bell surely also played its part, as did the prospect of the upcoming meeting with another, non-Bulgarian audience. But the conductor's reading of the work, together with the orchestra's execution of it, contributed to extending the "Bell atmosphere." The musical text was articulated with care; already in the first movement the "meeting" between the two textural layers — the melodic and the marcato-ostinato — was beautifully balanced. The climaxes of the typical dynamic build-ups were not overdone either, as sometimes happens; the beginnings of phrases were attacked very carefully — without accents, without a "special" downbeat. The symphony sounded with measured power, free of unnecessary excess, with well-formulated phrases and a strongly pronounced balance both within and between the groups. Its monothematic character was "played out" very skilfully across the dramaturgical development — through timbre, through phrasing and articulation, and through agogics. A successful presentation, entirely fit for export! 
