Grieg and Bruckner: Gerard Schwarz, cond., Freddy Kempf,  Seattle Symphony, Benaroya Hall, Seattle, 10.2.2007 (BJ)

 

It was fascinating to compare the sound of the Seattle Symphony in the Grieg Piano Concerto before intermission and in Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony afterward. I found the Bruckner performance to be one of Gerard Schwarz’s best. Not merely the brass section as usual, swelled on this occasion by the addition of those curious hybrids the Wagner tubas, but the entire orchestra made a perfectly wonderful sound. The woodwinds were by turns incisive and poignant, there was the customary crisp timpani work by Michael Crusoe, and the strings were at their best, with a firm foundation in the bass, eloquent contributions from violas and cellos, and some stunningly free and songful lines from the violins to top off the whole.

Schwarz’s interpretation, too, was masterful, He gave due voice to the music’s frequently changing moods, ranging from cosmic awe in the fearsome tonal clashes of the first movement by way of a bluntly thunderous scherzo to the intensity and anguish of the great Adagio that was the last movement the composer lived to complete. And he accommodated all these elements without ever allowing the symphony’s structure to degenerate into the plodding sectionality that too often afflicts and dismembers Bruckner symphonies in performance.

Altogether the second part of the evening was more than adequate compensation for the rather run-of-the-mill Grieg Concerto that started the proceedings. Born 30 years ago in London, Freddy Kempf is certainly a pianist to watch. Reviewing his recording of the last three Beethoven sonatas a few years ago in Fanfare, I opined that he was already very good and might one day be great, but his playing in this local debut did not represent a step in that direction. Enthusiasm is all very well. In this performance, however, it led to far too many percussive fortissimos, unilluminated by any true individuality in the handling of tempo and phrasing. All the finest performances I have heard of this work have been of the small-scaled, fine-boned variety–I remember with particular pleasure those of Leif Ove Andsnes (at the time considerably younger even than Kempf is now), Ivan Moravec, and the too-little-celebrated older Norwegian pianists Eva Knardahl and Robert Riefling. This, by contrast, was a reading that seemed intent on inflating the music far beyond its natural size. It was thus not surprising that the orchestra itself, having no special solo insights to live up to, played its role with none of the subtlety and warmth that made the Bruckner such a delight.

 

Bernard Jacobson