Wednesday, 26 October 2011

Kaspszyk & Kovacevich's mixed bag


8 October 2011 saw two DFP debutants - namely conductor Jacek Kaspszyk and pianist Stephen Kovacevich. For the reputation that Kaspszyk garnered by winning the Karajan conducting competition in 1978, some of the conducting was quite disappointing.

In the opening Beethoven Egmont Overture, there was an obvious lack of tension in the earlier sustained portion of the piece. After the initial flaccid opening, I also felt that there was a lack of triumphant feeling at the coda of the overture.

In the Beethoven Piano Concerto No 1 (part of yet another DFP Beethoven Piano Concerto cycle), 71-year old Stephen Kovacevich took to the stage. I remember him very well through his superb Beethoven cycle with Sir Colin Davis and the LSO & the BBC SO. I am still particularly taken with his interpretation of the Emperor Concerto, which is one of the "best" available. Anton Kuerti played the piano in all the concertos in a previous Beethoven cycle at DFP but this cycle is split between various pianists, of which Kovacevich is one of the most distinguished. (By the way, the DFP has not even done a "mature" Mozart Piano Concerto (Nos 12 to 27 say) cycle since 1997).

Barring some minor finger slips, Kovacevich gave a brisk and no nonsense interpretation of the First Concerto. His pianism still remains alive and dynamic at his advanced age but some of his chording seemed a bit biased towards the treble register instead of it being balanced throughout the piano's register. Nevertheless, the audience loved his playing and he rewarded them with an encore of Bach's Sarabande from the Partita No 4.

The lovely discovery of the concert was Karlowicz's Lithuanian Rhapsody - a superb example of having a native conductor from Poland conducting his own countryman's music. DFP is to be congratulated on having this bit of innovative programming. However, the next piece was yet another favourite DFP/MPO repeat: Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin Suite. The MPO played the piece well under Kaspszyk but it had been the umpteenth time the orchestra had played it in the hall since 1997. Isn't there any extra budget to buy and play new and exciting scores like Khachaturian's Spartacus for example? I rest my case.

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