This was a lively and enjoyable evening of blue chip music making from the Boston Symphony Orchestra and their Music Director Andris Nelsons. A cleverly curated programme kicked off with the European premiere of Four Black American Dances by Carlos Simon, which proved to be a colourful, if idiomatically conservative collection of well presented dances in the style of Copland and Gershwin. Each of the short movements created its own world and the most adventurous, Holy Dance, depicted the lively church celebrations. This was new music that entertained rather than challenged the audience.
After these high jinks dances, one of the greatest of all ballets, Stravinsky’s Petrushka took to the stage. Of all the composer's ballets, it is the one that most cries out to be seen and not just heard, with its vibrantly bustling setting in a fair and the sad little tragedy of the three puppets. To work on the concert stage, it needs to be characterised strongly and the rhythmic collage constructed to maintain the dramatic ebbs and flow. Nelsons' symphonic approach was most successful in the longer passages of the opening Shrovetide Fair and the final tableau, but in the central section, which depicts the main drama between the puppets, he was less effective. The BSO certainly have the beauty of sound to do the piece full justice, but the brighter colours and an edge of your seat vitality was missing.
After the interval, pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, dressed to kill, took centre stage. Ever the showman, he was in his element performing Gershwin’s jazz inspired Piano Concerto in F, a work that he champions and considers to rank alongside the great concertos of the 20th century. Nelsons and the BSO seemed to agree with this belief and played the important orchestral contribution as if the music was flowing through every vein.
The rhapsodic first movement, brimming with wonderful thematic material, was held together well, without being afraid to linger luxuriously on Gershwin's delicious tunes. The bluesy slow movement was a delight from first to last, the BSO's Principal Trumpet, Thomas Rolfs, surpassing himself in his jazzy solos that punctuate it. Thibaudet often took a back seat here, but throughout he closely interacted with the orchestra, clearly enjoying every moment. The finale is a cavalcade of colourful ideas, culminating in the return of the grandest theme from the first movement, in its most colourful garb. The virtuoso writing for the soloist was delivered with easy charm.
The evening wasn’t to end on this joyous note however, but with a top drawer performance of Ravel glamorously apocalyptic depiction of the end of pre-war complacency, La Valse. Rejected by Diaghilev as a ballet, it has found a very solid place in the concert hall. Effectively paced, the final bars were then positioned to deliver their full aggressive impact.
