Vienna played hot and cool
The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra is launching its two-week-long Viennese Festival this weekend with music by Mozart, Beethoven, Fritz Kreisler and Joseph Marx.
Pitching in are two soloists: The young Israeli pianist Roman Rabinovich, heard in Mozart’s 23rd Piano Concerto, and BPO Concertmaster Michael Ludwig, playing the music of the violinist Fritz Kreisler. The concert begins with the tone poem “Symphonic Night Music” by the little-known Viennese composer Joseph Marx, and ends with Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony.
It amounted to quite the extravaganza, and the concert went a little long. But it abounded in beautiful moments — as is only appropriate for a concert paying tribute to Vienna, the longtime capital of the music world.
Music Director JoAnn Falletta introduced the Marx by explaining that Marx meant the music to be a portrait of a garden filled with nightingales. It lived up to its promise. Soft woodwinds suggested darkness, birds and crickets.
Gradually shifting and changing, the music built in waves, to several big thrilling crests. To call it exquisite would not be overstating things. The one problem was that at 27 minutes without a break — longer than the whole Mozart concerto — it was long, particularly for the school kids at Friday’s daytime Coffee Concert. By the end of it, the balcony looked like a dorm room after a party, with kids huddled under jackets and sleeping on each others’ shoulders.
Rabinovich’s performance continued the concert’s soft, subtle ambience. He is on the quiet side and his take on the 23rd concentrated on the piece’s poetry rather than its wit or its passion.
Perhaps he is not a morning person. Pianists often are not morning people. It’s tempting to go back and hear him tonight. In any event, he was polished and confident, but he did not give the piece all the excitement it deserves. His best moments came in the delicate slow movement, in his quiet interaction with the woodwinds.
The three Kreisler pieces, arranged by Jascha Heifetz, were the highlight. Like Rabinovich, Ludwig is not a grandstanding player. But you got the idea he had internalized the spirit of these wonderful mini-masterpieces— so gallant, so evocative of an earlier, glittering era. He paced things well, holding back for “Caprice Viennois” and then gradually upping the emotion for “Liebesleid” and, finally, an extroverted “Liebesfreud.”
Oddly enough it was the Beethoven’s Eighth that woke up the school kids. It was fun to hear this symphony live. It’s so full of light, of jokes, of those games Beethoven liked to play, those stomping rhythms he loved. Various instruments — horns, clarinet—get their turns in the spotlight.
The orchestra shone. The strings were crisp, the tempos were brisk, and metronome-like scherzo was especially charming. It sounded as if the musicians were enjoying it. The crowd did, too.
The concert repeats tonight at 8 p. m.
Concert Review
Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra
Classics series with pianist Roman Rabinovich Friday morning and 8 p. m. today in Kleinhans Music Hall.
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