GÜNTHER HERBIG
USA REVIEWS
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, October 2006
"...led by highly valued guest conductor Günther Herbig... the BSO gave a tight, forceful account of Beethoven's Coriolan Overture at the start. Herbig and the Orchestra were operating in total synch when, after intermission, they turned to Brahms' Symphony No 2.
The conductor shaped it lovingly, allowing poetic impulses to unfold in spacious fashion, without hindering the overall flow of the performance. He reached particularly eloquent heights in the Adagio, looking deeply into the music's dark beauty. Encountering such a big-hearted approach to Brahms is a treasurable thing, and it continued right through the concluding movement.
The players seemed thoroughly engaged in the experience, paying great attention to nuances of dynamics and coloring as they responded to Herbig's sure, sensitive guidance." The Baltimore Sun, Tim Smith
Columbus Symphony Orchestra, June 2006
Maestro ends season with magical program
"With Günther Herbig on the podium, the Columbus Symphony Orchestra smashed home the closing program of the season... Last night's concert was performed before an attentive and enthusiastic Ohio Theatre crowd.
... Herbig successfully guided the Orchestra and the audience to each location in decisive, emphatic and ultimately convincing interpretations...
A sweet lyricism pervaded the third movement and much of the finale (Brahms Symphony 2), with Herbig only giving the Orchestra its head just in time for a stunningly exuberant final statement.
Perhaps the most admirable quality of the performance of the Shostakovich (Symphony 5), in addition to its clear purpose and focus, was the way in which Herbig tied the music of this composer to what comes before. Shostakovich was very much mired in the spiritual devastation of post-war Soviet society, and that surely colored everything he wrote. But too often, contemporary interpretations of his music stop there.
Yet it has beauty, it has passion, it has melody, and Herbig and the orchestra found these qualities - as well as the searching despair we more readily associate with his music. The much debated last movement lived up to its quizzical reputation, even in this very deliberate performance. By taking his time through the supposedly uplifting and celebratory last bars, Herbig only seemed to underscore how forced, how labored they truly are..." Barbara Zuck, The Columbus Dispatch
Toronto Symphony Orchestra, March 2006
"Herbig brought Louie's (Music for Heaven and Earth) deliberately-paced score to shimmering life...
Then there was the sweet Brahms symphony (2). It's a work Herbig obviously knows well, since he conducted it without a score in front of him. The result: pleasant, balanced and mellow." The Toronto Star, John Terauds
Seattle Symphony Orchestra, February 2006
A world-class orchestral experience
"The occasion of a guest conductor is always an auspicious occasion, because the Orchestra sounds different as it responds to new direction. So it was Thursday night, as Günther Herbig brought his unique insight to three staples of the repertoire and gave us a world-class orchestral experience. Herbig has conducted major U. S. and European Orchestras and has garnered an international reputation doing so.
The highly listenable Weber "Overture to Oberon" is an ideal opener in that it has something for everyone: mystery and enchantment, excitement, and love. Herbig infused it with a sprightly buoyancy within a reasonable tempo, always with an underlying rhythmic insistence. Ensemble was razor-sharp, strings sounded warm and lush, and the woodwinds clean and smooth.
Herbig gave us a regal performance of Schumann's Third Symphony, the "Rhenish." In the grand opening theme and ensuing material, he coaxed a wealth of nuance from the Orchestra. His no-nonsense conducting style is direct and capable of great inflection within the beat, without excessive self-serving gestures. It was the polished, intriguing product of a mature artist who brings an accumulation of insight and introspection to his work. From the lilting Landler-like scherzo to the Bach-inspired fantasia-like splendor of the fourth movement (with its fine brass playing), Herbig left me inspired and grateful for the experience." George H Pro - The Seattle Times
Columbus Symphony Orchestra, January 2006
Guest conductor makes magic in tribute to Mozart masterpieces
"Herbig's Mozart, of course, brims with all the life - and with all the sophistication - Columbus audiences have come to expect when he's in town...
Herbig created ever-changing vistas, not only offering a different landscape for each symphony but a vast range of expression and detail within each interpretation...
As one would expect, Herbig and the Orchestra lavished their most exciting and most powerful playing on the Jupiter, especially the extraordinary finale... Barbara Zuck, The Columbus Dispatch
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, January 2005
BSO offers warm music on a cold night
"Seemingly unperturbed by the imminent approach of the White Death - and presumably already well stocked with bread, milk and toilet paper - a goodly number of people turned out last night to hear the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra play an ear-warming program of popular pieces.
Günther Herbig, a frequent and welcome BSO guest, was on the podium at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, assuring an ease and cohesiveness of execution, not to mention refined taste.....
Beethoven's Egmont Overture, encapsulating the ideal of freedom from tyranny much spoken about in Washington earlier this week, makes its ever-potent effect with flashes of drama and insistent rhythms. Herbig shaped the good-over-evil scenario authoritatively and drew from the orchestra a tight, bold performance....." Tim Smith, The Baltimore Sun
Columbus Symphony Orchestra, October 2004
Unprecedented chorus harmonizes Beethoven
"An audience strong in numbers went wild last night at the Ohio Theatre after a very powerful Columbus Symphony Orchestra performance of Beethoven's Ninth led by Günther Herbig. The long standing ovation was accented by loud cheers and vigorous applause.
Combined with last weekend's successful presentation of Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony, when Herbig made his debut as the symphony's new artistic director and principal guest conductor, the future of the association looks bright...
There wasn't a weak moment in last night's performance. Without the use of a score, Herbig used his directorial skills to the fullest, holding a tight rein on the tension and release that characterize the first movement, relishing the contrasts in the brilliant scherzo, drawing out the delicate, expressive nature of the adagio, attacking the finale and, with passion and a sure hand, leading the combined vocal and orchestral forces to the work's exalted conclusion.
It is difficult to single out any one section or voice for praise. From the required strident or sweet sounds of the strings, the spirit of the woodwinds, the support of the horns, brass and timpani to the beauty and power of the soloists' voices, and the glorious delivery of the chorus, it was a performance to be savored.
"All men will become brothers," they sang. Beethoven's idealism is welcome." Mary Hoffman, The Columbus Dispatch
Columbus Symphony Orchestra, October 2004
Guest Conductor helps create a little magic
"Last night... Günther Herbig made a praiseworthy debut as the Columbus Symphony Orchestra's principal guest conductor.
The event was anticipated, given the German born maestro's reputation, the heralded guest artist, the orchestra's maturity and an appealing program offering Dvorak's Violin Concerto in A Minor, Op 53 and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No 6 in B Minor, Op 74, Pathetique.
As different as day and night, the concerto is steeped in the colors of the composer's native Bohemia: the symphony in the despair of a Russian genius... the Tchaikovsky was all that anyone could hope for...
After intermission, Herbig returned to the podium to conduct the Pathetique, this time without a score. The white haired maestro seemed a different man on the podium, now throwing himself into the performance with passionate involvement, at one with the composer and his music. He and the orchestra - every section in peak form - created musical magic, a living, breathing interpretation that was an absorbing artistic achievement.
Herbig shaped the performance as a potter his clay, ever sensitive to the dynamics, the thrust, the power, the monumental despair. The reading of the third movement march had one on the edge of one's seat; the unfolding tragedy of the fourth, near tears.
Herbig conducts the CSO in Beethoven's 9th Symphony next weekend." Mary Hoffman, The Columbus Dispatch
Toronto Symphony Orchestra, May 2004
"Wagner and Bruckner are a kind of religion for those in tune with the significant Teutonic aesthetic they represent. The operas of the one and symphonies of the other are holy pinnacles of the musical art, to be approached reverently and as self-sacrifically as necessary...
Whatever one's own affinities for these two remarkable works, one would have to agree that Herbig conferred something near ultimate fulfilment upon them.
The Idyll... opened the concert, and Herbig and the orchestra gave it a reading of exquisite finesse and the utmost tenderness. The tempo was faultless, neither rushed nor dallying. The music breathed and sang in an exemplary continuum.
After the early intermission thus so discreetly arrived at, Herbig and the orchestra proceeded magisterially to the main event, the Bruckner symphony, which rather more than amply filled the long second half of the evening...
Herbig savoured every shift and shade of Bruckner's harmony, and every instrumental coloration, extracting every available difference from all the near-repetitions in the discourse, unfurling every tune and its counterpoint with affectionate delicacy.
He conducted (as he did in the Wagner) without a score, and it was obvious he knew and adored every note of his chosen programme. The orchestra responded superbly, and if all this still did not make quite an all-in Brucknerite (or Wagnerite) of this reviewer, the failure had to be his own. I could discern no failure in the performances." Ken Winters, The Globe and Mail
Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Nov 2003
"Herbig, who served as DSO Music Director from 1984-90, offered an emphatic view of Shostakovich's shadowed score. There was no wallowing in emotion here, but rather an eloquent rumination on deepest human tragedy. The work's awful message is relentless, and Herbig never forgot it. Even in the animated scherzo at the symphony's center, his attention to rhythm and voicing underscored the disfigurement of hope and cheer.
Near the end, irony and misery converged as Herbig chased and snared a little dance theme, one that might suggest enduring mirth, and buried it in a sepulcher of low strings. The DSO responded to its old boss with alert, disciplined, expressive playing." The Detroit News, Lawrence B. Johnson
Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Jan 2002
Günther Herbig earns applause for his return and 'Great C'
"Indulging Schubert's singular fusion of martial music - much of it is literally in march rhythms - and lyricism, Herbig imbued the "Great C major" with equal parts of charm, vitality and storm. It was an approach that placed the work within the clear classical line from Mozart, even while vaguely anticipating the angst of Mahler (who adored Schubert) that would mark the century's end. From the DSO, Herbig drew supple, luminous playing...an orchestra performance of engaging character and unfailing poise." The Detroit News, Lawrence B. Johnson
Toronto Symphony Orchestra, April 2001
"... Herbig led the Orchestra, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and a quartet of impressive soloists with a steady, firm pace as the symphony journeyed from tragic forebodings to spine-tingling joy. The faster movements had a noble, inexorable quality. But the slow movement especially benefited from Herbig's approach. It glowed with inexhaustible benevolence, and one truly understood why Beethoven didn't seem to want it to end." The Toronto Star, John Lehr
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, October 1999
Herbig's Tchaikovsky: expressive and exciting
"Günther Herbig is one of the few modern conductors as much concerned with beauty of sound as with accuracy of rhythm, intonation and of the notes themselves... His performance of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No 4 in F Minor was as dazzling and fresh as it was beautiful.... This interpretation of the Tchaikovsky Fourth was balm to the ears... Herbig's interpretation, while played with a passionate forward romantic sweep and plentifully filled with subtleties of expression, was uncalculated in its phrasing, consistently involving in its directness and exciting without being overdriven.
Much the same could be said about the performance of Liszt's "Les Preludes", which opened the concert. Herbig tempered the music's brashness, saving the full weight of the brass for the final peroration and thus making it all the more compelling." The Sun, Stephen Wigler
"...The Orchestra under Herbig played magnificently... In the Schumann Fourth Symphony, Herbig received beautifully disciplined playing for an interpretation that was as warm as it was intelligent.... Stephen Wigler, The Sun
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, June 1999
BSO ends Zinman-less season with a bang
"One of my big concerns when guest conductor Günther Herbig led the Baltimore Symphony in its first program back in September was how the orchestra was going to sound in its final concerts in June...That worry was finally put to rest this past weekend when Herbig returned to conclude the season with the BSO's finest performance of Beethoven's Symphony No 9 in my 14 years in Baltimore. This was a remarkable accomplishment... Only a superb conductor and orchestra, driven by inspiration, can make the Ninth sound as fresh as this.
Herbig's performance frequently recalled those of his great mentor, Herbert von Karajan. There was a similar sense of high gloss and unerring control combined with biting urgency... Herbig built the architecture relentlessly to the tremendous resolution of the coda." The Sun, Stephen Wigler
Toronto Symphony Orchestra, June 1999
Orchestra enthusiastic with a former leader
"Günther Herbig, who was the orchestra's musical boss from 1989 to 1994, returned to the podium at Roy Thomson Hall last night with an eclectic program consisting of works by Mozart, Dvorak and the Peterborough born composer Brian Cherney. And both Orchestra and audience gave Herbig a warm welcome.
The Orchestra gave a rousing account of itself, giving full weight to the coloration and texture of the work as well as its dynamic range and with particularly crisp work from the strings." The Toronto Star, Robert Crew
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, February 1999
"One of the world's great soloists and a superb conductor leading a fine orchestra in a behemoth of the symphonic repertory for which he has a special affinity.
The Cellist (Lynn Harrell) received glowing support from Herbig and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Conductor and Orchestra did even better by Bruckner's Symphony No. 9. Herbig realised the dramatic tension in this score without sacrificing its sense of mystery. There are far too many Bernstein and Furtwangler wannabes who aim at that mysteriousness with erratic tempos and over-the-top emotionality. But Herbig is that rare bird who makes the logic and coherence of Bruckner's leisurely paragraphs seem obvious while others merely make them sound aimless." The Sun, Stephen Wigler