Pianist Mikhail Pletnev was the poised soloist in Rachmaninov's Paganini Rhapsody, tone perfectly judged and weighted, phrasing and shaping alert and alive, and Leonard Slatkin conducted an account of Dvorak's New World which was both attentive to detail and big-boned in effect.
May 6, 2002, Monday
Birmingham Post

The orchestra's playing was prompt, fresh and alert.
May 06, 2002, Monday
The Washington Post
 

  “Slatkin, a graduate of the Juilliard School,is a member of the third generation of a musical immigrant family. Although he neither advertises the fact nor places any importance on glamour, he belongsto the ranks of the great. In conjunction with this modesty, his musical intelligence, humour and effective rehearsal work are so highly regarded within the field that he is part of a group of the most frequently engaged guest conductors in the world. Although this is a task that it will take years to complete, Slatkin is already bringing about audibly beautiful results and stemming the tide of the global threat of a world orchestral sound, exchangeable from Tokyo to Los Angeles. This orchestra is in the middle of a great leap forward.”
(Frankfurter) Allgemeine Zeitung
 

"Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung" - Clever Bridges

Or rather in American: The National symphony Orchestra of Washington at Pro Musica in Hannover The sponsor and aircraft manufacturer suggests the theme: a concert as a bridge. Though it may sound banal, it need not remain so if the concert dramaturgy feeds the advertisers’ message with more meaning than the sponsors could possibly have hoped for in their wildest dreams. At the guest performance of the National Symphony Orchestra Washington in the Hannover Kuppelsaal, the program almost burst with transatlantic relationships and references. The first bridge: a construction of light fabric, colourful and Constructed to allow free airflow. The first secretive sounds of Gunther Schuller’s “Seven Studies on Themes by Paul Klee” arise out of the nothingness of prehistory. The title could lead to the assumption that Klee himself was musically involved in the development of the piece, but this is not the case. It is the Swiss artist’s pictures that the America composer has chosen for his theme. Included in these is the famous “Birdsong Machine”, which is rebuilt here, somewhat smugly, upon the musical the basis of serial composition techniques. Only a very few listeners will have had every single image, such as “the Arabian city”, or “The Little Blue Devil”, before them. And yet it was very easy to recognize Klee’s filigree figure work, his exciting language of imagery stretched between the mysterious and the schematic. The orchestra from Washington succeeded in bringing Schuller’s dainty tone pictures into the hall so vividly and with such presence that one could follow the delicate strokes without the benefit of an acoustic telescope. It was an achievement which should not be taken for granted. Musical director Leonard Slatkin holds all of the threads in his fingertips, and yet he keeps them firmly in hand. Precision, liveliness, and beauty of tone: these are all qualities one expects in performance by a good American orchestra. Leonard Bernstein also looked towards deep western philosophy in the Search for the model for a new work. His “Serenade” for solo violin, strings, harp and percussion pretends no more and no less than a translation of Plato’s “Symposium” into sound. It is a lively play on the ideas of the philosopher. In the Pro Musica concert, violinist Joshua Bell layed his bow on the strings like a ruler and drew fine lines of sound through space and time. Even in the last movement, a transition from learned conversation to drunkenness, the brilliant violinist preserved a feeling for nobility of sound. The final bridge was built of massive blocks of stone. A work from the Time of great symphonic palaces, constructed by a European in, about and for America onn the basis of his impression from that side - in other words, from the other perspective. The National Symphony Orchestra was not afraid of making its point in Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony “From the New World”. Slatkin strode through the three fast movements with brisk tempi and Taut dynamics, giving the effect of energy rather than excitement. The Second movement proved that preconceived ideas about the superficiality of American ensembles cannot be applied to the National Symphony Orcehstra. A slow-paced, gripping tension filled the Largo, opening wide spaces in the music. The orchestra only allowed itself an excursion into the clichéd in taking its leave. After a delicate tone painting by Faure, the Americans presented a second encore, a march filled with national pathos. Anything goes – if necessary, even all of it in one evening.
Burkhard Wetekam
Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung