Pianist Olga Kern has performed several times with the Madison Symphony Orchestra, dating back to 2009.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and that old chestnut was certainly true when the Madison Symphony Orchestra returned to live performances Friday night with a full slate of musicians for the season’s first concert.
“Welcome back!” said Maestro John DeMain to the crowd of about 1,000 patrons who responded with enthusiastic applause. “You can’t imagine how much this means to all of us up here.”
In step with COVID-19 protocols, both audience and orchestra were fully masked with the exception of the brass and woodwind players who, DeMain noted, were “set way back” on the stage with proper social distancing protocols. Whatever inconvenience any of this may have caused had little effect. MSO never sounded better, and to a player they performed a concert rich in tone and timbre.
After opening with an unadvertised performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which brought the audience to its feet in an impromptu singalong, the orchestra wasted no time getting to the main program, starting with “Alborada del gracioso,” written in 1919 by Maurice Ravel. The colorful eight-minute opening, written to celebrate the composer’s mother’s Basque heritage, went from delicate to explosive in a matter of measures. It seemed a little noisy at times — odd considering that it was originally written for solo piano — but it was highly emotive, entertaining and a good way to start the musically rich evening.
Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 43,” has been performed by MSO five times since 1961, but guest pianist Olga Kern breathed new life into the 22-minute work. The first woman in 30 years to win the Gold Medal at the prestigious 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, Moscow-born Kern delivered a delicate and robust solo that was a suitable match to the soaring orchestral backdrop. At times she soared with her fellow musicians, while at other times she performed in counterpoint using an impressive cross-handed technique that embraced the composer’s themes.
The audience greatly appreciated her performance, and she rewarded their standing ovation with an encore snippet from Prokofiev that further demonstrated her piano pyrotechnics.
Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55,” known as the “Eroica,” was “Beethoven’s best symphony if not the best symphony ever written,” according to DeMain. The composer had originally dedicated the work, written in 1805 and filled with heroic themes, to Napoleon Bonaparte, only to cancel that dedication when Bonaparte declared himself emperor of France. The 50-minute composition served as an impressive opening to MSO’s year of celebrating Beethoven’s 251st birthday.
MSO always proves it mettle with the longer compositions that occupy the second half of any concert, and they did so again with great aplomb. The composer abandoned certain symphonic conventions of his time, relying on the strength of his composition to redefine the genre. The music was textbook Beethoven, and MSO’s players once again carried the composer’s emotion and intellect to a beautiful, almost soulful conclusion.
Bravo, MSO!
Kern will perform with the symphony again Oct. 16 at 8 p.m. and on Oct. 17 at 2:30 p.m.
