It’s easy to be complacent about early Beethoven, but last night the Princeton Symphony Orchestra offered a performance of the Piano Concerto No. 1 that was both engaging and, in its outer movements, an unanticipatedly fiery affair.
Although in style the concerto is very far away from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (preceding it by a good quarter century), there was no shortage of Joy in evidence as soloist Sara Davis Buechner launched into the last movement with a playful accelerando. It was one of many inspired, seemingly irrepressible touches, as the pianist played throughout, even when she wasn’t necessarily supposed to, spontaneously, during the louder tutti passages! In a performance that was full of surprises, she astounded even by offering her own cadenza. Her enthusiasm was infectious, and the audience responded to the fresh approach.
Kudos to timpanist Jeremy Levine, as always lending visceral support with his percussive contributions. He supplied plenty of lift and imbued the piece with moments of awesome temperament. All the love usually goes to Concertos 3, 4 and 5, but the orchestra and soloist made the strongest possible case for 1 being a neglected gem.
On the second half, music director Rossen Milanov led Schumann’s Symphony No. 4 with great authority, the musicians hanging on his every gesture, as he guided them with the kind of expressive freedom one would expect more from a solo piano recital. But here, the 50 or so musicians followed him as one. Very impressive indeed. In the most thrilling performances (I’m thinking of the classic Furtwängler recording or an underrated one by Adrian Boult), the propulsive fourth movement can build to such intensity that you feel as if you want to leap out of your seat. Last night’s performance, while not wanting for rhythmic drive, was most magnetic in the contrasting lyrical passages, which came across as enchantingly as the most transporting music by the composer’s close personal friend, Felix Mendelssohn.
The concert opened with “Become River,” a hypnotic quarter of an hour crafted by the environmentally-focused John Luther Adams. Adams, not to be confused with the other John “Nixon in China” Adams, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2014 for “Become Ocean,” the first of what has turned out to be a cycle of “Become” pieces. The title is taken from a poem by John Cage. But don’t expect the music to sound anything like Cage. The concept echoes more Smetana’s “Moldau,” tracing a river on its course, only without the Romantic nationalist underpinnings. This is the 21st century, so execution-wise, you’d be better off imagining what it would be like if Arvo Pärt had written the opening of “Das Rheingold.”
The strings played so high at the start, in support of percussionist Greg Giannascoli, who elicited equally stratospheric tones by running a bow across a set of crotales, or antique cymbals, that they likely set dogs howling in Bucks County. But like water itself, the music soon expanded to find its way into every corner of the orchestra to create a meditative space, disturbed only by inappropriate sotto voce whispers, a dropped cell phone, and chair kicking on the part of those in my vicinity.
Hell may be other people, but the Princeton Symphony Orchestra did everything it could to allow one to conceive of a better world.
The program will be repeated this afternoon at 4:00 at Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall on the campus of Princeton University. For tickets and information, visit princetonsymphony.org.
