Pablo Heras-Casado scores with Summer festival Hat Trick

Sep 23, 2010

Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casado has excited the critics with a hat trick of US festival performances that saw him debut with The Cleveland Orchestra and Mostly Mozart Festival at New York’s Lincoln Center, and return to the Los Angeles Philharmonic for his first appearance at the Hollywood Bowl.

Commenting on his performance of Beethoven’s Second Symphony at the Blossom Music Festival, Cleveland’s Plain Dealer enthused: “Heras-Casado, who is part of a new generation of conductors making waves in the classical music world, distinguished himself with noteworthy interpretive fire and technical prowess… propulsiveness with crisp orchestral articulation was his successful formula for the opening Allegro con brio, as well as the witty and kinetic finale.”  

There was similar praise for his Eroica at the Hollywood Bowl. Noting his experience working with period instrument groups, Mark Swed in the LA Times was taken by “the combination of period-practice attention to sharp-edged attacks and transparent textures and a Modernist’s love of exciting rhythm and dissonance. The result was a wonderfully new kind of Stravinskyan Beethoven… [with] tight ensemble and steely attacks.”  

There was real Stravinsky for audiences in New York a few days later. Here, the New York Times was struck by the “incisiveness of his reading… sharp-edged interpretation, and the bright sound he drew from the ensemble.” As if summing up all three concerts, the paper concluded that Pablo “provided precisely the kind of energy you want in a summer evening’s performance”.