My plans fell through to go to New York to hear Canellakis's Carnegie debut (unbelievable it's taken this long, no?). She gets raves everywhere, clearly she's got something. If Boston and Andris manage to patch things up (somehow), I don't know where she'll end up, but she's going to be a big star ten years from now.
She's not my type of musician. Everything with her is linear clarity and impact, She's not a particularly great phraser, yet there is a line however compressed. Everything is heard: nothing is atmosphere. I appreciate the lightness and virtuosity, I even appreciate the power and dynamic range, but I find it all a little shallow. Rubato and spontaneity is nowhere. I'm sure that makes things safer for the musicians to execute more cleanly, but inspiring? No.
And yet... the one video where she strikes me as having something like the full measure? Beethoven.
You don't have to be the greatest conductor in the world to create great Beethoven (though it helps), you have to be the most energetic, the fieriest, the least self-conscious, the most galvanizing.
This isn't just galvanizing. This is electric. Suddenly that woodenness you find elsewhere goes elsewhere: whether her style fits Beethoven like a glove or Beethoven brings something out in her, this is magnificent. Canellakis's parents were Juilliard trained musicians, her mother a pianist her father a conductor, and she grew up a violinist. I'm sure she grew up with Beethoven's entire repertoire in her pores in a way she didn't necessarily have the 1900 warhorses, but I have no idea.
The opening is faster than we're used to; fairly close to the metronome, and unlike so many performances, the fast tempo is almost always absolutely secure and they never slow down except two very brief moments (this is so rare, everybody slows down...). But she achieves the impossible that very few do: quickness and dramatic impact, or to put it a different way: lightness and weight simultaneously. Honeck can do it, Gielen can do it, Canellakis can do it.
I don't know how she got them to play for her like this, but man, this is something very special.
