Lisa Marie Mazzucco
Emanuel Ax
The Madison Symphony Orchestra launched its season with a visit from a legendary pianist and a program celebrating John DeMain, who is marking his 25th season as music director.
The festivities, which took place Sept. 28-30 at Overture Hall, began with a documentary film on DeMain’s illustrious career and a short piece by contemporary composer Jennifer Higdon. Her Fanfare Ritmico, written in 1999 to welcome the new millennium, is a noisy affair focused on the pounding percussion battery. Its purpose was not quite evident.
The orchestra followed with DeMain’s personal exploration of Sergei Prokofiev’s magnificent ballet, Romeo and Juliet. DeMain has drawn upon three orchestral suites that demonstrate the way Prokofiev captures both the lyrical tenderness and the brutal tragedy of Shakespeare’s drama. This is demanding music, and DeMain shaped it with flexibility, beauty and strength. The orchestra responded to his ideas with true virtuosity.
The second half of the program was devoted to the Piano Concerto No. 2 by Johannes Brahms, played by the durable and ever-extraordinary Emanuel Ax. It was his second time playing this work here, and his fourth visit as a soloist with the MSO.
In this massive score, Brahms profoundly expanded aspects of traditional forms. He added a Scherzo to extend the traditional concerto format of three movements into four, all of truly symphonic proportions. Indeed, the work is in some ways a symphony for piano and orchestra.
A particularly outstanding interpreter of the work, Ax managed the sturdy muscularity of Brahms’ writing, giving particular attention to the gentler, even more poetic aspects of the score. His playing was remarkably pure and precise, filled with graceful qualities, but his energy was unflagging. It was a performance to remember, and to ponder.
The orchestra obviously shared in his realization of the work, playing beautifully. First-desk cellist Karl Lavine demonstrated the point in his lovely playing of the solos in the third movement.
