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SYMPHONY REVIEW Great Mozart, Fervent Martinů November 1, 2002
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By John McCarthy
Czech conductor Jiri Belohlávek and the Czech pianist Ivan Moravec
teamed up with the San Francisco Symphony this past Friday at Davies Symphony
Hall. Performances of two orchestral rarities by Janácek and Martinu framed
a Mozart concerto, making for an engaging and deeply moving evening.
Moravec is something of a cult figure in piano circles and his belated San
Francisco Symphony debut has been long awaited. The natural elegance of his
playing is ideally suited to the Mozart Concerto in A major, K.488. His legendary sound was not merely generically beautiful, but revelatory. Mozart as supreme colorist was present in Moravec's playing throughout. His was always a meaningful sonority, rather than naively trivial. Even with a reduced orchestra, Belohlávek produced a sonority that was at once lush and yet clear. Mozart's innovations in orchestration, his ability to blend
woodwinds and horn with a cantabile, liquid piano line came to mind
throughout the performance.
Completed in 1786, at a time when pianos produced a sustained tone that was
also agile, the concerto contains one of the great slow movements in all
the literature. Moravec maximized the elasticity of the Adagio without
breaking the line. While today's modern piano is perhaps more
diffuse in sound and sings with some difficulty, Moravec's tone may well have been close to what Mozart had in mind.
Perfectly proportioned and unforced, Moravec's sense of rubato was uncanny. Metrically strong, overt accents in the coda of the first movement were, in retrospect, part of an overall design, balancing the flexibility in other sections, especially the cadenza. An occasional imprecision with the orchestra was superfluous in light of music-making with such breadth and resonance, like a great singer. Rather than romanticized, Moravec's playing was essentially operatic. As with Dvorák and Smetana, both Martinu and Janácek were touched by inspiration and transcend nationalism. Janácek's Overture to From the House of the Dead, the program opener, received its first San Francisco Symphony performance. With material originally intended as a violin concerto by the composer, it contains some energetic and fresh writing for solo violin. Associate concertmaster Nadya Tichman played with striking virtuosity. To program From the House of the Dead during Hallowe'en was very San Francisco, a trick and a treat. A spirited and enthusiastic Jiri Belohlavek returned after intermission to lead the orchestra in Martinu's Symphony No. 4. It took some time to adjust to the comparatively sinewy and intricately scored writing after experiencing such unassuming virtuosity in Moravec's Mozart. Still, orchestral opulence and Belohlávik's strong emotional pull compelled the listener. Czech dance elements in the scherzo were playful without being overdone. The use of the piano as a coloristic element is an unusual aspect of the piece and Robin Sutherland's playing was vibrant. To his credit, Belohlávik did not suppress the orchestra with super-refined ensemble playing as an end unto itself. Rather, the orchestra was allowed to play with abandon and the resulting emotional honesty from the conductor and the musicians led to a fervent account of this outgoing, wonderful symphony.
(John McCarthy is a pianist and teacher. He is Director of Preparatory and Extension Divisions at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.)
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Ivan Moravec
Jiri Belohlávek