by Stephanie Manning
This article was originally published on Cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio — The summer is almost over, which means that Franz Welser-Möst is back on the podium. The Cleveland Orchestra’s music director has historically preferred to make his appearances at the tail end of the Orchestra’s summer season, and he has scheduled himself for two performances during the last week of August. On Thursday evening, August 27 he led the final concert of the 2026 Summers at Severance series, bringing a good-sized crowd to hear a program of emotionally charged music at Severance Music Center.
Although the timing of Welser-Möst’s return to Cleveland is typical, it now comes with more gravitas than usual, as he is gearing up for his 25th and final year as music director. Understandably, his programming for this upcoming season has become more retrospective to match. Thursday’s concert featured works by historic composers he loves — Richard Strauss and Richard Wagner — and a living composer he has championed — Bernd Richard Deutsch.
As Welser-Möst explained in his program notes, Wagner’s Prelude to Act I of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg nods to the conductor’s focus on opera during his tenure. Like the opera concerts presented at Severance each spring, the stage accommodated a large string section, giving the music a grand scale.
The conductor wasted no time in this music, charging ahead and encouraging the momentum to build. The Prelude makes for an exciting opener with its flourish of an ending. The musicians nicely balanced its long string lines with the important statements Wagner gives to the woodwinds and brass.
Closing the program’s first half was Bernd Richard Deutsch’s Intensity, a work commissioned by the Orchestra during Deutsch’s tenure as its Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellow. True to its title, Intensity contains more peaks than valleys, bouncing around the orchestral palette like a ping pong ball and switching time signatures in the blink of an eye.
Deutsch goes all out in the percussion department, calling for 23 different instruments across four players. Even though a central idea never fully materializes in the music, still, new sounds continuously pique the ear. The middle section quieted down enough for the listener to appreciate the soothing rainstick, the ping of the finger cymbals, and a stratospheric solo by concertmaster Joel Link.
Strauss’ Symphonia domestica crammed the stage with more players than the Wagner, thanks to extra woodwinds and brass. Strauss calls for some unusual orchestral instruments here — like the oboe d’amore, an earthy middle ground between an oboe and an English horn, here played with panache by Robert Walters. Oboist Frank Rosenwein and flutist Joshua Smith often joined in, to beautiful effect.
Befitting a symphony portraying domestic life, the orchestra generally kept things light, ensuring that the dramatic moments were intense but not overwrought.
Rather than letting the Symphonia’s triumphant ending conclude the evening, Welser-Möst then returned to the podium for a rare orchestral encore — Richard Strauss’ “Moonlight Music” from the opera Capriccio. Placed in conversation with the tone poem before it, that choice emphasized the serenity, rather than the conflict, of domestic life.
Photo by Aireonna McCall-Dube
Published on ClevelandClassical.com, September 3, 2026
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