How does one put together a frothy Viennese orchestral program without drawing upon composers named Strauss? Ask John Eliot Gardiner, who gathers the likes of Suppé, Lehár, Heuberger, and Ziehrer at this intelligently programmed and meticulously executed musical dessert cart. A light music fancier with a cultivated sweet tooth, however, will rightly suspect the chef in charge to be the proverbial calorie counter from hell. Gardiner favors bracing tempos and taut, steel-edged textures that smack of rigorous, schlag-free dieting. The punchy orchestrations of Lehár’s Ballsirenen and Gold und Silver, to be sure, benefit from Gardiner’s crew-cut approach, and faster paced selections like Zieher’s Polonaise from Fächer and Lanner’s rarely heard Tourbillon-Galopp show that the Vienna Philharmonic can sprint with incision and pep when it has to. Even so, one sorely misses the soaring lyricism and lilting inflections this repertoire desperately needs in order to blossom, bloom, and inspire an audience to leave their seats humming the tunes.
