By Janelle Gelfand
The Cincinnati Enquirer

His first tour with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra behind him, music director Paavo Jarvi had a few days on the beach last week to reflect on what they accomplished earlier this month in America's most important musical venues.

Reviewers lavishly praised concerts in New York's Carnegie Hall, Boston's Symphony Hall and Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center, as well as smaller halls in Long Island and Worcester, Mass. Feature articles in major publications such as the New York Times previewed the concerts.

Jarvi was surprised at the

positive exposure they received - even in cities where the press can be patronizing.

"When you go to a place like New York, where they are used to high-level music-making and a variety of concerts, they were not just polite with us. I felt that the response was genuine and quite good," Jarvi said last week from his family home in Palm

Beach, Fla.

"The other thing was, I sensed in the dress rehearsal of Carnegie Hall, there was a type of concentration and focus that I don't think I ever experienced with this orchestra - or with any orchestra.

"Everything looked the same, but the minute we started rehearsal, I felt that everybody zeroed in and were so keyed - they were sort of ready."

A who's who of the musical world was in Carnegie Hall on March 31 for Jarvi's first concert there with his orchestra of two years. There were agents, orchestra managers, press, composers, major performing artists (including Siberian violinist Maxim Vengerov, friend of CSO soloist Vadim Repin) and conductors, such as Russian maestro Valery Gergiev.

"I had to sort of smile about this. It certainly generated quite a bit of attention," Jarvi says. "Everybody who had been following our story - they were there. They were curious. A lot of people wanted to see, what is it all about? Is it just talk, or for real? ... Someone said they'd been to concerts there for years and years and they don't remember a buzz like this backstage!"

More important than the buzz, for Jarvi, was how well the orchestra played.

"They really rose to the occasion," he says. "It was especially important that while we played well, a lot of important people saw us. But at the very end of the day, we need to be more proud of how we played, rather than who saw us."

Boston was best

For Jarvi, the high point of the tour came April 2 in Boston's Symphony Hall. It was the CSO's first performance there since the 1960s, when Max Rudolf, Jarvi's former teacher, appeared with the orchestra.

"There was a sense of accomplishment, knowing that the most exposed place (Carnegie Hall) is now done, and done well," Jarvi says. "We were still sort of all keyed up, because we knew it was an important place, and we hadn't been there for a long time... .I felt best in Boston, but you can't beat the sense of occasion in Carnegie Hall."

The orchestra has been invited back to Carnegie Hall for the 2004-05 season. "We do have a firm invitation, and that makes us very happy," Jarvi says.

More risk-taking

The tour was the culmination of his second season with the CSO, a year when Jarvi says he and the musicians "got closer" and he saw more risk-taking in concerts.

"I think the orchestra is a different orchestra now," he says, adding he has noticed, particularly, improvement in the string sound. He also finds he and the musicians communicate better during rehearsals, and there's more eye contact during performances.

"There's a kind of silent language which is very important. It's very nice when you feel that people understand your nuances, because you can do things in concert that you didn't talk through, and everybody's there," he says.

"A concert is not something that is so thoroughly planned, that you just go and press a button and you execute a master plan. A concert is a living thing, and it starts when you go onstage, and you should throw out everything that you know in your head, and just start creating anew. That is something that we can can do better now."

Contract extension

On the eve of the tour, Jarvi signed a contract extension that will take him through the 2008-09 season.

"For me, that was not really a question of should I stay, or should I not stay?" Jarvi says. "It was a question of trying to see if the initial relationship works. I knew it would work after the first year.

"... In this event-driven culture, where every performance has to be an occasion, we have an environment where we can grow, and, in a way, I think people envy that a little bit.

"You can grow in places like Cincinnati, where you have a long-term policy, and where you have a loyal audience who is willing to go with you."

Today, Jarvi leaves for Florence, Italy, where he will conduct Beethoven's opera, Fidelio, at the Maggio Musicale in May.

E-mail jgelfand@enquirer.com

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