The LSO presented two lengthy, challenging works in this evening’s concert dedicated to the late Maurice Murphy, former principal trumpeter. No doubt Murphy would have been proud of the orchestra’s efforts on this occasion, with the brass section particularly excelling themselves in the Mahler.
Shchedrin’s Fourth Piano Concerto, subtitled ‘Sharp Keys’ (he has written six to date) is a strikingly unusual piece written in two movements. The romantic passages featured grotesque interspersions, which when coupled with highly virtuosic writing recalled the early piano concertos of Prokofiev, himself an accomplished concert pianist like Shchedrin.
Like his compatriot Rachmaninov, Shchedrin also incorporates traditional Russian bell-sounds into his music. The magical sounds of wind chimes, along with glockenspiel and tubular bells punctuated the second movement, while pensive repeated notes from the piano accompanied an aching string theme.
From the sensitive, rhapsodic opening to the insistent energy of the toccata, soloist Olli Mustonen maintained a lightness and ease of motion despite the music’s increasing complexity. Like any experienced intrepid adventurer, Mustonen was well prepared to tackle the demands of this pianistic summit, with several tricks up his sleeve that made light work of the music’s difficulties. At times he seemed almost possessed by a vibrating, electrical impulse, which made the music burn with a white-hot energy. He was aided but unencumbered by the musical map of the score, understandably so in this most challenging of solo works. Here the piano dominated with a brittle brilliance that was impossible to ignore.
Continuing Gergiev’s Mahler cycle was the First Symphony, written when the composer was just 24. If the Shchedrin was something of a pianistic Everest, then the Mahler more closely resembled an Alpine mountain range, its peaks and dips covered with carefully measured stamina. The symphony embodied a full-blown Romanticism from the outset, the woodwind piercing through a transparent blanket of strings. The rustic Ländler that followed had its feet more firmly on the ground. The strings dug their heels in deep before reverting to a more restrained elegance for the Trio section.