This Schumann's bicentenary tribute featured the Overture, Scherzo & Finale, the Piano Concerto Op 54 and the Spring Symphony. John Neschling and Jean-Efflam Bavouzet made their DFP conducting and piano debuts here at this event respectively. Of the two artists, the conductor is a very impressive musician with very interesting credentials.
His grandmother was a cousin of the great composer Arnold Schöenberg and married Arthur Bodanzky, music director in Ulm, Germany. He studied conducting under Hans Swarowsky in Vienna and under Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa in Tanglewood. Later, he won important international conducting competitions and went back to Brazil in 1973 to assume the position of music director of the municipal theatres of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro and has recorded extensively for BIS.
I particularly enjoyed the orchestral pieces as the control the conductor exerted over the MPO players was very impressive - with clarity of execution, depth of tone, unanimity of phrasing, tight ensemble and great interpretive ideas. Even the usually poorly tuned MPO horns played with an unusual accuracy and steady pitch, without any discernable cracked "notes".
The pianist must still be a rising star in the making with a good touch. However, in the first two movements, he appeared nervous and had quite a few keyboard mis-hits - resulting in wrong chording within his pianistic line and the orchestra too. The last movement surged with an excellent swagger - so much better than the previous strained outing with that horrible pianist Andreas Haefliger (who last played this concerto with the MPO). Bavouzet duly rewarded the audience with a French encore in the form of Debussy's Preludes Book 2 No 3 La puerta del vino.
I believe that the MPO played very well with Neschling and he should be invited back for a return conducting visit.
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