Fernando Baez
After three prior appearances with the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Russian-born, American-based pianist Olga Kern is a warmly welcomed guest soloist.
And this time, to her credit, she avoids warhorses and brings to the Madison public the rarely heard Piano Concerto of American composer Samuel Barber. His Violin Concerto is fairly well known as a concert item, but his Piano Concerto is a novelty. It was composed in 1962 for pianist John Browning, and years ago Browning actually played it with the MSO.
While the score can be connected to Barber’s renowned post-Romantic style, it finds the composer stretching out that style to a densely compacted treatment of thematic motives in contrasting moods, with tremendous energy, notably in the wing movements. It benefits from careful study, and Kern is utterly involved, making the strongest possible case for it. Together she and conductor John DeMain give it propulsive strength, inspiring conviction in the wonderful MSO players.
Kern’s encore on Oct. 20 was a Rachmaninoff etude, reflecting the pianist’s strong identification with that composer.
Preceding the concerto is a work of delicate contrasts. Under the title of Ma Mère l’Oye (Mother Goose), Maurice Ravel composed a suite of five fairy-tale pieces for piano duet in 1910. Shortly after, for a ballet of the same title, Ravel orchestrated those five pieces and composed six more. But he took the orchestrations of the original five pieces to create a suite which is the score performed in this MSO program. Ravel was always able to write with equal finesse for piano or orchestra, and this orchestral suite demonstrates his typical elegance, delicacy and gossamer textures. Even if it’s short on French character, the MSO plays this music with suave transparency and refined color.
The second half of the program is devoted to Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony No 9 in E minor, “From the New World.” While it is unfortunate that this mythology-laden score has overshadowed the composer’s other brilliant symphonies and orchestral works, it is understandably a highly popular piece. Under DeMain, the MSO shows total command of every detail. I did find that the brass section delivers particularly robust contributions, but this orchestra is altogether at its best while playing such vibrant and beautiful music.
The program is repeated on Oct. 21 at 8 p.m. and Oct. 22 at 2:30 p.m. in Overture Hall.
