It sounds like a jetliner, but it feels like a ship. That's a jetfoil, the vehicle which hauled the Cleveland Orchestra from Canary Island to Canary Island this morning. We arrived at Santa Cruz de Tenerife shortly after 10:30am. As we disembarked, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra was waiting to take our places. They played their Tenerife concerts in the Festival de Musica de Canarias just before the Cleveland Orchestra.

Santa Cruz, I'm told, has something of a friendly rivalry with Las Palmas. I learned this from a gentleman with whom I spoke after tonight's concert. He's a local resident, and reminded me of Las Palmas's new 3000 seat concert hall, Alfredo Kraus Auditorium. Now, he says, Santa Cruz is designing a new facility, too. It'll be only 2800 seats, but he says it will be "more elegant."

Las Palmas had a spectacular beach, but Santa Cruz has marvelous parks. Since rehearsal wasn't until this evening, the orchestra had a few hours to relax. I spent the afternoon with two orchestra members, violinist Gino Raffaelli and tubist Ronald Bishop. We wandered through Parque Garcia Sanabria and Parque la Granja, and walked downtown to take in some local color and check out the concert hall, Teatro Guimera.

On the way we encountered a busking flute and guitar duo, several street vendors selling clothing and jewelry from blankets, a group of young women who succeeded in selling me a flower, and a street mime to whom I gave the flower.

Teatro Guimera is a vintage opera house. Rehearsal showed its acoustics to best advantage. Alas, when full, it was not so fine-sounding. Not only was the sound dull from the house, several orchestra members commented on how difficult it was to hear one another. Because the Cleveland Orchestra is so focused on internal listening, such onstage acoustics can be a challenge for them.

That may have been the cause of some rough spots in tonight's Rite of Spring. Although I caught some rhythmic imprecision and uncertain entrances, the audience gave it a good reception and got two encores in return. Once again Music Director Christoph von Dohnanyi pushed the Prokofiev Classical Symphony Finale at a heady clip. The first encore, Dvorak's Eighth Slavonic Dance, may have been the most successful work on the program. Dohnanyi really seems to enjoy this sort of music. Certainly the audience loved it.

The Beethoven Violin Concerto had some uncomfortable moments. Soloist Frank Peter Zimmermann seemed to be having trouble with his instrument, maybe because of Tenerife's unaccustomed tropical conditions. His intonation was a bit uncertain. He even slipped in a quick tuning manipulation during the slow movement.

But if technical problems marred the early movements, they were forgotten in the finale, when Zimmermann set a tempo that fairly danced. This is some of Beethoven's most attractive music, and the audience was obviously enjoying it as much as the musicians. They called Zimmermann and Dohnanyi back for five bows, and Zimmermann thanked them with a Paganini Caprice as an encore.

Tomorrow evening the orchestra performs its second Tenerife program: Alfred Schnittke's (K)ein Sommernachtstraum, Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin Suite, and the Schubert Ninth, a Cleveland Orchestra specialty.

David Roden
WKSU Assistant Program Director