Syracuse Symphony Orchestra:

Last night was the 2nd concert of the 6 concert series we bought for this season of the SSO. Because I am a student, we got a pretty extraordinary deal on these tickets (12 total tickets for $60) and going downtown for a concert once a month or so is a nice change of pace.

Anyway, last night featured Yefim Bronfman as guest soloist on piano and was the best of the several SSO concerts I have seen to date. The orchestra opened with Duke Ellington's jazz interpretation of the Nutcracker Suite, which was a very nice piece that I had not heard previously. I thought the orchestra handled the "jazziness" of it well, though they didn't swing as tightly as a "Pops Orchestra" that is more accustomed to playing jazz might. I do recommend the piece, though, as a great change of pace. It's available on a CD called "Three Suites", which I have linked to at the bottom of this post, that also includes a jazz version of Grieg's Pier Gynt Suite that must be very cool.

The 2nd piece of the night was Mozart's 22nd Piano Concerto (in E-flat, K. 482) and was the first to feature Bronfman. While this concerto does not, for me anyway, have the depth and intricacy of the 21st, 23rd, or 24th that bracket it, it is a very nice, lush piece and the 3rd movement is familiar to even casual classical listeners. I was struck by two things while listening to Bronfman's interpretation of the piece. First was how, for a larger, gruff looking man, he had such a supple style at the piano. He really only tickled the keyboard. 2nd, and this goes to my not being a piano player myself I suppose, I was struck at the number of passages that I had imagined in my mind's eye were 2-handed runs which were actually done only with the right hand. Quite amazing to watch, really.

The last piece of the night was Prokofiev's 3rd Piano Concerto (in C, Op. 26). It is on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's list of the top 100 concertos of all time (http://www.abc.net.au/classic/classic100/concerto_list.pdf), which I am working my way down, but last night was the first time I had heard it. As you would expect, it was darker and more harmonically challenging than the Mozart, and Bronfman was somewhat more animated in his playing. He has recorded all of Prokofiev's piano concertos, though, so is perhaps more "married" to this piece. As challenging as this piece clearly was, I was impressed with how our SSO handled it.

So, next month we are scheduled to see Ingrid Fliter play Beethoven's 2nd Piano Concerto and the full orchestra to the "Eroica" Symphony, which should be as true a test of their overall sound as we will get in this series.

Link to Duke Ellington's "Three Suites" at Amazon.com

Link to Robert Casadesus' Mozart 22nd Piano Concerto with the Cleveland Orchestra at Amazon.com

Link to Yefim Bronfman's Prokofiev 3rd Piano Concerto at Amazon.com