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REVIEW: Passau European Weeks 2015 - Neues Volksblatt (Germany)

Rousing String Music
The Vienna Chamber Orchestra presented an interesting program during Friday’s Passau European Weeks concert at the Engelszell Abbey Church. It began with the youthfully impetuous String Symphony No. 10 in B minor by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. From the piano Stefan Vladar then sovereignly and impressively conducted Mozart’s Piano Concerto in A major KV. 414; … The famous “Adagio for Strings” by Samuel Barber was grippingly rendered as a gloomy atmospheric picture. An intensive presentation of the “Souvenir de Florence” String Sextet in D minor op. 70 by Peter I. Tchaikovsky in a version for string orchestra formed the high point of the evening. With his gesturally rich conducting Stefan Vladar spurred the musicians on to an overpoweringly rousing performance. The sumptuous romantic sound and the vehement passion in the dynamic accumulations were superabundantly discharged, while lyrical passages conveyed a profound, very sensitive impression. Tchaikovsky’s Russian and Italian experiential world received a masterful musical interpretation, which the audience acknowledged with a resounding ovation.