By Lyn Bronson
Pianist Anton Nel & Maestro John Larry Granger
Sometimes at an orchestral concert you can tell right away which works on the program received the most rehearsal time. So it was last night as the Santa Cruz Symphony under the direction of Maestro John Larry Granger, launched its 2009-2010 concert season. The major work, which ended the program, Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony, showed off the Santa Cruz Symphony Orchestra at its best. In this work all the bold dramatic gestures and all the lovely melodies came together to produce a powerful and moving performance. The strings sounded rich and sonorous, the winds and brass were fine and the instrumental solos were lovely.
The opening work, Finlandia, Op. 26, by Sibelius, fared less well, for the orchestra sounded under-rehearsed. Ensemble was ragged and in general the level of orchestral playing was just not up to the standard we expect from the Santa Cruz Symphony. Similarly, the orchestral playing in the first movement of the Grieg Piano Concerto also sounded like a rough reading, rather than a finished performance. Right from the beginning we had a clue of what was to come. After the introductory timpani roll, the crack of the pianist’s opening A minor chord in the extreme treble was so covered up by the orchestra you couldn’t hear it at all. Throughout the first movement orchestral textures constantly got in the way of solo passages and distracted rather than enhanced the score.
In the second and third movements of the concerto, however, the Santa Cruz Symphony sounded like a different orchestra. The strings were creamy and smooth, and the solos were outstanding (especially the lovely lyrical flute solo in the F Major section of the last movement). At the end of the third movement the orchestra tended to drown out the piano, but perhaps that is a weakness in the original scoring, and perhaps it is a characteristic of the very fine Steinway concert grand used in this concert, which although a thoroughly lovely instrument, tends to lack the steely brilliant power needed in climatic moments of a concerto.
About pianist Anton Nel, the evening’s soloist in the Grieg Piano Concerto, his was a superb performance! In this day and age, we often hear extroverted young virtuoso pianists (often who never met a fortissimo they didn’t like, or couldn’t play louder) blasting their way through concertos in the standard repertoire while displaying flashy empty technique that does no service to the great works they are trashing. Mr. Nel, however, is a virtuoso, a great musician, and a sensitive artist of the highest rank. He has it all: splendid technique, pure poetic musicianship, and that most treasured gift of all – the ability to produce a performance that is totally convincing and seemingly inevitable. Every phrase, every passage he played, flowed naturally to its logical conclusion.
Reinforcing this impression, Mr. Nel responded to the audience acclaim by playing an encore: the Romance in D-flat Major, Op. 24, by Sibelius. This is a work that had a certain vogue a hundred years ago, and that has been unjustly neglected in recent years. Nel brought to this piece a fine poetry and dramatic expression with lovely voicing and shaping of phrases. It was truly gorgeous!
End
