- Mozart: The Magic Flute Overture
- Grieg: Piano Concerto: soloist: Vital Stahievitch;
- Nielsen: Symphony No. 1
- Conductor: Hitoshi Suzuki
- Piano Soloist: Vital Stahievitch
This was a nicely curated selection of works. Even the charming Mozart overture, written for his Viennese audience in 1791, sat companionably with the Scandinavian compositions from the second half of the nineteenth century when we think of Bergman’s excellent film of the opera.
The overture is introduced through its famous Masonic chords, everything in threes to delight the composer’s numerological fellow-Masons who knew what they signified. But the pacy, melodic, fantastical music was just the thing to inspire the orchestra to excellent ensemble playing right from the off. Hitoshi Suzuki’s tempo was delightful, giving the work all if its drama, its sense of atmosphere and fairy tale.
The focus for the evening was the much-loved Grieg Piano Concerto. It was bewildering to understand that the soloist, Vital Stahievitch, who flew in from Amsterdam for rehearsals only days before, learned this piece just to perform for the MSO concert. I say bewildering, because the performance was EXHILARATING.
Grieg’s concerto is often compared with Schumann’s in the same key, but Stahievitch’s delivery of the music expressed Rachmaninoff’s verdict that Grieg’s work was “the greatest ever written”. The electrifying opening chords, demanding instant audience attention, cascaded down the Steinway keys with smooth authority. Yet there was freshness, too. Each and every note had delicious clarity; every virtuosic passage had a steely strength behind it; and the lyricism never came at the expense of the dissonance and bitter-sweetness of the music. The adagio had such delicacy, the gorgeous melody caressed into being. Wonderful colours emerged in the exchanges with the strings, the horns and woodwind. In the final movement, we marvelled at the harmonious musical conversation between the soloist and orchestra, particularly the question-and-answer moments with the bassoon, the flute, the oboe and cellos. The audience was wowed, showing appreciation with a prolonged ovation and animated chatter which spilled across the interval at some length. We can hope Vital Stahievitch prolongs his relationship with the MSO, and hops on a flight from Amsterdam again soon.
The concluding piece was not widely known. Maestro Suzuki sought a show of hands from anyone in the audience who knew the Nielsen work, and numbers were small. The MSO’s programme notes explained that “not a bar could be by any other composer”; but an unfamiliar ear might detect wisps of Dvorak, rhythms reminiscent of Beethoven. The MSO must have been challenged by a piece less commonly performed, perhaps not in their usual repertoire. But the Danish composer’s symphony was delivered with vigour, shimmering colours, energy, and considerable feeling. It is easy to compliment the superb playing of the woodwinds, who never miss a step. But the violins were at their finest, too, and the brass flinty, while delicate passages from the darker strings, the violas and cellos, were a thrill. Thank you, MSO.
Deborah Losey