“The Beethoven Journey” is a remarkable collaboration between pianist Leif Ove Andsnes and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. According to Andsnes, it is “a multi-season project that will make the composer’s music the centrepiece of my life as a performer and recording artist”, and it will feature these musicians touring throughout venues in North America, Europe and Asia as well as releasing all the Beethoven piano concertos on CD.
The Mahler Chamber Orchestra, founded in 1997, has established a reputation as one of the finest chamber orchestras in the world. Their relatively small size was obvious here in Birmingham’s Symphony Hall, more often a host of much larger ensembles. The musicians were also clustered tightly around the piano, which was placed in the centre of the group and positioned so that the pianist’s back would be to the audience.
As we waited for the overture to begin, there was a sense of expectation that Andsnes might come on stage to conduct it. However, the orchestra suddenly began playing under the subtle yet authoritative direction of concertmaster Steven Copes. Clearly used to performing without a conductor, the ensemble was absolutely secure throughout the evening. The orchestra sported a lean yet cultured sound. Throughout, vibrato in the strings was used sparingly with woodwind lines lovingly played. In the dramatic overture, inspired by Heinrich von Collin’s tragedy Coriolan, punctuating chords were played with gunshot accents and precision. The scene was set for the Third Piano Concerto, composed in the same key of C minor, which featured at the end of this programme.
Andsnes is renowned for his fine interpretations of works by the great Romantics like Rachmaninov, Schumann and Grieg as well as the Classicists, Haydn and Mozart. In Beethoven’s music, these worlds tend to collide, and Andsnes proved to be a very fine Beethoven interpreter indeed. Technically, his playing was flawless, which I would have expected from a pianist of his stature, but this was all the more remarkable given his dual role as performer and director. He began by standing to conduct the opening orchestral tuttis in both the first and the third concertos and, once seated to play, used subtle hand and head gestures to coordinate orchestral entries and the shaping of phrases.
It was clear that Andsnes had given a lot of thought not just to the solo parts but to the phrasing and the general timbre he would like from the orchestra. The phrasing had all the good manners that I would expect in our post-historically-informed practice times. Dynamic contrasts were often startlingly achieved and it was lovely to see so many smiles on the faces of the players, clearly enjoying each other’s music-making. Only occasionally did I get the sense of phrasing and rubato in certain transitions being cool and calculated where they may have sounded a little more organic with the presence of a conductor.