Spectacular Tchaikovsky from Oue

We are resigned to the fact that we may never see Seiji Ozawa in the DFP hall but a perennial favourite Japanese conductor with the MPO and the KL audience - Eiji Oue - was in charge of the great Tchaikovsky evening on 10 April 2010. Replacing Yevgeny Sudbin in the First Piano Concerto, was the rising Japanese-German star of the DG label - Alice Sara Ott. Her interpretation of the concerto was good and perhap even slightly sluggish in the famous opening tune. It was a reasonable interpretation but she lacked some tonal heft (that someone like Arcadi Volodos could muster up). There were some missed notes near the end of the third movement but the audience were treated to an encore by Liszt (La Campanella), which did not out-do Yundi Li's interpretation a few years ago.

The second half belonged to maestro Oue and he gave a very direct yet soulful interpretation of the dramatic fourth symphony. Simon Emes played a superb and haunting oboe solo in the second movement, which the strings scampered along with in the third pizzicato movement and whirled at a fantastic speed for the last movement. Nevertheless, it was an extremely good performance of the Tchaikovsky Fourth. This is not out-do the visiting Philadelphia Orchestra's interpretation under maestro Sawallisch years ago at the DFP. However, the MPO is improving vastly and steadily under Claus Peter Flor and its current crop of visiting conductors.