From nickels to crowns

I used to wonder how people got so into having preferences for conductors—even though I played in multiple youth orchestras and was very familiar with the vision and amount of labor conductors put into interpreting music, I very much felt like I couldn’t really tell one conductor’s style apart from another. Whenever I went to the symphony, what I heard, I thought, was the *piece*, and I primarily pick concerts to attend based on the program and not who’s on the podium.

Last season at the LA Phil I found myself at a concert conducted by Xian Zhang, and the last piece on the program was my least favorite Beethoven symphony: the 7th. (This, I know, is sacrilege to many people.) I resigned myself to making it through, dreading the clichéd second movement. To my utter shock, Zhang’s performance of the symphony was one of my favorite things I heard all season and it just blew my mind: it all felt so incredibly fresh and vibrant and full of life. I honestly couldn’t believe what she’d done.

Based on the magic she worked with the Beethoven, I bought tickets to hear Zhang conduct the Phil a few weeks ago, and was excited to see what she’d do with another cliché work, Smetana’s Moldau. She did not disappoint; the Smetana sounded so alive and vivid in her hands (and I enjoyed the following two movements, which I never hear).

I’m going to say a thing I have not figured out how to say without sounding stupid: Xian Zhang is really, really good at rhythm. I am fully aware that is an incredibly basic thing to say—what professional conductor isn’t good at rhythm?—but the magical thing she seems to do is to turn rhythm from a function into a vehicle for expression, and to imbue every tempo change with excitement. I have got to figure out how to do that myself.