By L. PIERCE CARSON, Register Staff Writer | Posted:
Thursday, February 4, 2010
The deafening applause and cheers resounding
throughout the valley late Sunday afternoon were not
prompted by a celebration of runaway offense on the ESPN
telecast of football’s annual Pro Bowl.
Rather, the clamor and spontaneous noisy acclaim came
at the conclusion of a decidedly brilliant, sweeping
performance of Tchaikovsky’s celebrated First Piano
Concerto by electrifying Pianist Valentina Lisitsa and a
vibrant Napa Valley Symphony Orchestra at Yountville’s
Lincoln Theater.
Not only did this radiant young soloist with flowing
blonde tresses and lightning-speed hands provide a rapt
symphony crowd with a robustly romantic performance of
the vastly popular Tchaikovsky piano concerto, for an
encore she knocked off a lovely, often dizzying reading
of Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.”
Helping the concert artist score high marks was an
astounding quarter-million-dollar Steingraeber concert
grand, on loan to the symphony from Berkeley’s R.
Kassman, purveyor of Europe’s best pianos. In fact, it
was a Steingraeber on which Liszt composed the encore
piece, because, as music lore has it, the Steingraeber
was the only piano of its time that the bombastic Liszt
couldn’t destroy.
An explosive player in the Romantic repertoire,
Lisitsa performs with an enormous sound and possesses
one of those techniques other pianists dream of. She has
been receiving rave reviews since her 1991 debut in the
United States, after fleeing her native Ukraine
following the breakup of the Soviet Union. She has
performed more than 30 concerti with such orchestras as
the Chicago Symphony, the New Zealand Philharmonic and
the Prague Chamber Orchestra. And as a soloist, Lisitsa
has played many of the world’s most prestigious concert
venues, including New York’s Carnegie Hall, Vienna’s
Musikverein and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw.
Regally dressed in a black velvet and taffeta gown,
Lisitsa displayed an unerring dynamic sense in her wine
country debut. Soft passages were so delicate, one was
afraid to breathe, while Tchaikovsky’s chords thundered
effortlessly from her fingers.
The performance by Lisitsa and the orchestra had
prodigious virtuosity. After a commanding opening,
conductor and pianist found a perfect balance between
dynamism and gentle poetry. The Andantino had amazing
delicacy, with the central theme glittering like a night
sky full of shooting stars. The opening movement’s
cadenza, along with the closing moments of the finale,
resulted in gooseflesh-raising, all-out bravura one
would normally associate with someone like Vladimir
Horowitz.
Not only does Lisitsa offer poetic, sure-handed
readings of challenging works, she does so with blazing
virtuosity. Following the Tchaikovsky and the Liszt
encore, Sunday afternoon’s audience was on its feet,
applauding and cheering this amazing young concert
artist. If she had continued to play, I suspect very few
would have left the auditorium much before bedtime.
With a polished performance from conductor Asher
Raboy and the orchestra, the first half of Sunday’s
concert will be recalled for some time to come as one of
the local orchestra’s most memorable events.
More Russian angst
In a concert that spotlighted works from Russians,
Dimitri Shostakovich’s highly imaginative “Symphony No.
5” was the focus after intermission.
Shostakovich is one of the most striking composers of
the 20th century. Hampered for many years by the
political demands of Russia’s cultural commissars, his
elusive and deeply emotional music nevertheless has
considerable stature. He is a composer given to crude
humor, even savagely raucous pages that puzzle listeners
when they follow long eloquent passages of extraordinary
beauty. Desperately intense, Shostakovich’s music at
times sounds anguished.
All of those forces come together in his Fifth
Symphony, which, according to maestro Raboy, is the
“most articulate” exposition of emotion ever put on
paper.
Shostakovich’s fifth symphony packs tremendous
emotional punch. It expresses the tragedy of life in the
Soviet Union during the Great Terror of the 1930s,
leading up to WWII. The work encapsulates the life of
the average Russian at the time, and reflects the
urgency of preparing for war to save the Motherland.
From the shock and turmoil of the opening to the gritty
resolve of the finale, it chronicles the struggle to
survive in the composer’s native country.
Very much in command, Raboy and the spirited
orchestra provided a vibrant, supple reading, very
moving in the Largo, which is the heart of the piece as
it is in so much of Shostakovich. Great solos and a
resonant brass section made for an impressive finale.
The Russian program is one subscribers will remember
for years to come.
And for those in the audience taken with the Liszt
encore from Lisitsa, the pianist indicated during
intermission she plans to record the work soon.
