Festival del Sole ends on high note with Andsnes, Beethoven

By L. PIERCE CARSON
Register Staff Writer

Festival del Sole 2009 ended on a high note Saturday with the bold stamp of the imperious Ludwig van Beethoven as interpreted by the award-winning 39-year-old Norwegian pianist, Leif Ove Andsnes.
 

One of the most compelling artists on the world’s concert stage, Andsnes made his festival debut a week ago with a majestic reading of Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.” He stuck around to wow a late Saturday afternoon crowd with a personal, highly attractive performance of Beethoven’s “Piano Concerto No. 3 in C  Minor.”

The pianist was rewarded by an ingratiating collaboration with the talented, youthful Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas. Under the direction of dynamic James Gaffigan, former associate director of the San Francisco Symphony, the orchestra also offered the appreciative finale crowd spirited renditions of Rossini’s “Overture to the Barber of Seville” and Mozart’s “Symphony No. 31 in D Major (Paris).” 

Initially gaining attention worldwide in the 1990s for his lyric approach to music and his varied piano repertoire, Andsnes keeps quite busy performing and recording with some of the world’s best orchestras. In fact, his schedule (which includes performances of the Beethoven third in New York and Boston this week) includes bookings all over the world through the end of the year. He’s released a total of eight new CDs in the past three years.

Andsnes’ virtuosity is breath-taking, his tone is beautiful and his legato sings regardless of the accompanying texture. Above all, he captures every style, idiom and mood. Andsnes’ phrasing, dynamics and liberties are balanced and poised, and his love for the music speaks through every note.

As Beethoven’s music characteristically does, the third concerto pulls the listener and performer in, as does the music of almost no other composer, and makes them participants in the emotion of the score. The third piano concerto is the first one to use a minor key and the first one that clearly separates Beethoven from the classical music of his era. In this concerto, the composer produced a more varied and dynamic work rich in the turbulent emotions for which he was becoming known.

Beethoven’s third concerto opens with a long, highly symphonic orchestral introduction, with the movement alternating between the virtuosic and the lyrical, matched by the talents of both soloist and orchestra.

Andsnes and the Gaffigan-led Philharmonic offered a brilliant performance of the first movement, with outstanding orchestral accents from brass and woodwinds. The strings were vitally alive, the cadenza appropriately stormy. Beginning with solo piano, the slow movement was serene and poised, the pianist’s own emotions adding to the attraction. The work’s aggressive feeling returned in the orchestral tuttis of the finale. It was a reading that charmed — a personal, excellent performance from all hands.

The marvelous balance of piano and orchestra can be credited in part to the bright, brilliant sound of the Steingraeber concert grand, valued at $300,000, provided for the festival by Berkeley piano purveyor Russell Kassman. Andsnes looked good and sounded even better at the Steingraeber keyboard.

When Mozart was in Paris longing for an opera commission, he turned out a smoothly crafted symphony (No. 31) to show the hard-to-please Frenchmen what he could  do. It’s urbane, fashionable music, complete with a delicate and lovely slow movement for strings only.

Under Gaffigan’s graceful direction, the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas’ performance was festive and bustling — a good mood for this work.

To open the proceedings, maestro and orchestra served up a Rossini overture marked by brilliant playing — with splendid discipline, vibrant rhythms and finely articulated phrasing — altogether bracing and invigorating. It was as light as a three-star kitchen’s soufflé.

Festival Executive Producer Charles Letourneau told Saturday’s audience that attendance was up by 30 percent this year, with many of the concerts  selling out.  Dates for Festival del Sole 2010 are July  17-25, with violinist Joshua Bell already booked to perform at several events.

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