Following last weekend’s world premiere and Yo-Yo Ma appearance, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra this Friday delivered a triumphant season finale program with world-renowned pianist Emanuel Ax.
Manfred Honeck conducted music by Beethoven and Berlioz in Heinz Hall, with tenor Paul Appleby, the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Youth Chorus crowding onstage for Berlioz’s “Te Deum” after intermission.
The evening began with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, “Emperor,” concluding this season’s Beethoven piano concerto cycle of all five of the master’s concerti. Mr. Ax played with an ease and assurance that only comes from years studying and performing a work, matched by his boundless creativity and spontaneity. The first movement was a brisk, thrilling affair, with orchestra and soloist passing melodies back and forth with spellbinding precision and grace.
Mr. Ax’s second movement was pure tranquility, and he kicked into overdrive for an exhilarating Rondo finale. Here, Mr. Honeck conducted with oddly lethargic gestures, with the orchestra not quite matching Mr. Ax’s momentum for the first couple of iterations of the theme. But this is a tiny quibble with a mesmerizing performance.
After the break, Mr. Honeck demonstrated once more an uncanny ability to balance enormous musical forces. He marshaled the combined might of the full orchestra and the two choirs for a majestic Pittsburgh premiere of “Te Deum,” a Christian hymn of praise set to music by numerous composers. Berlioz’s interpretation is thickly scored, with voice parts often doubled by various instrumental groups. The performers played and sang with sensitivity and achieved a gorgeous variety of timbre. Mr. Appleby, the tenor soloist, was especially tender in the fifth movement, and the choir’s a cappella response to his melodies shivered with feeling.
Quadruple cymbal crashes in the second movement notwithstanding, the pageantry of “Te Deum’s” finale was fitting for the end of a strong PSO season.
This concert repeats at 8 p.m. Saturday and at 2:30 p.m. Sunday. $20-$99; pittsburghsymphony.org.
Jeremy Reynolds: jreynolds@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1634; twitter: @Reynolds_PG. Mr. Reynolds' work at the Post-Gazette is supported in part by a grant from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Getty Foundation and the Rubin Institute.
First Published: June 16, 2018, 4:00 a.m.
