Piano Concerto No 1 - Brahms
Ein Heldenleben - Strauss
It's hard to imagine a piece with the epic qualities of Brahms's First Piano Concerto being thrown away as a sort of warm-up opener. But that's effectively how it was treated at the NCH on Friday, when Spanish pianist Rosa TorresPardo was the soloist with the NSO under its incoming principal guest conductor, Gerhard Markson.
Torres-Pardo's monochrome linearity and as-you-please rubato sold the music seriously short, and Markson's none too discriminating handling of the orchestra made for very limited perspectives in Brahms's first great orchestral undertaking.
The conductor preceded his performance of Strauss's tonepoem Ein Heldenleben with an illustrated potted guide to its hero's struggles and achievements. He categorised it as a young man's music, and then treated the audience to a beautifully-shaped, affectionate, au tumnal reading.
Here he carefully avoided his tendency in the Brahms to allow dynamics to be defined by the density of the orchestration. He clearly relished the challenge of maintaining organic continuity within the teeming sumptuousness of Strauss's orchestral imagination. And he ensured that, while the breadth of his conception tended towards expansiveness, there was still a strong feeling throughout of well-knit musical argument.
It was as if two different orchestras had been on the stage, an edgy, tonally-undernourished group in the Brahms, a band of altogether greater discipline and refinement in the Strauss, the one frustrating the very grandeur they seemed to be seeking, the other achieving far wider-reaching goals without apparent difficulty.
