What’s in a (soloist’s) name?
CAMBRIDGE - Big-name soloists these days command truly astronomical fees, placing them beyond the reach of a semi-professional orchestra like the Boston Philharmonic. Conductor Benjamin Zander has therefore had to be creative with his choices of whom he brings to appear with the group. He has a good track record of recruiting once-eminent players who still have plenty to say with their music but whose dance cards are less full, such as the violinist
Ivry Gitlis or the cellist Natalia Gutman. He has also tapped dynamic early-career soloists like pianist Gabriela Montero and violinist Stefan Jackiw. There are never any guarantees, but a searing performance from one of these lesser-known players has a way of underlining the hollowness of the classical music star system. When is the last time you heard, say, Itzhak Perlman play as if there was something serious at stake?
Sunday’s concert in Sanders Theatre, the last of the orchestra’s current season, featured the Japanese-born violinist Kyoko Takezawa, a well-established soloist who has recently been playing mostly with smaller orchestras and flying a bit below the radar. Based on Sunday’s evidence, it was hard to understand why. She took the daunting solo part of Bartok’s Violin Concerto No. 2 and, as they say, played the heck out of it.
Her tone, while not large, easily filled Sanders, and its focused richness was evident from the very first phrase. So was the sheer force and electricity behind her playing, perfectly tailored to the muscular, careening, gypsy-inspired lyricism of Bartok’s concerto. You had to admire the rhapsodic intensity she brought to the passage immediately following the first movement cadenza, and throughout the work, ironclad technique allowed her to bring shape and clarity to Bartok’s dense squalls of notes. Zander and the orchestra were sympathetic partners.
After intermission came a warm-toned and fervidly delivered account of Brahms’s First Symphony. Zander gets his strings players to really dig in, and the resulting sound, if not always finely groomed, has an expressive heat that was well-suited to this music. Notable solo playing in the Brahms came from Peggy Pearson, oboe; Kathleen Boyd, flute; Thomas Hill, clarinet; Jonathan MacGowan, bassoon; Kevin Owen, horn; and concertmistress Joanna Kurkowicz.
The orchestra has announced its four concerts for next season, which includes a return visit from Gutman. Fans of Lutoslawski’s astonishing Concerto for Orchestra will have a chance to hear that work performed next February on a program that includes Ligeti’s “Romanian Concerto” and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3, with the now Boston-based Montero returning as soloist.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
Boston Philharmonic
Benjamin Zander, conductor
At: Sanders Theatre, Sunday afternoon more stories like this