Guest conductor Osmo Vänskä had just the right touch at Friday evening’s Pittsburgh Symphony concert, making two cornerstones of the Russian Romantic repertoire sound fresh and exciting. Ahead of that was an alluring work from Canadian composer Samy Moussa, a 2021 piece entitled Elysium. Its world premiere was given by the Vienna Philharmonic at Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia, a performance that must have been as striking visually as sonically.
Fitting for a piece first performed in a cathedral, it takes its cue from Bruckner in sculpting vast waves of sound, resounding through the hall in imitation of a cathedral organ. Chords were not discretely spaced, but rather, connected in a continuous thread by sliding glissandos, exploring the infinite sounds between. Stern brass and clangorous percussion made this 12-minute opener quite the orchestral tour de force.
Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini was a platform for the PSO debut of pianist Janice Carissa, a 26-year-old, Curtis-trained native of Indonesia. Fitting for its rhapsody designation, the work opens markedly differently from a standard set of variations, with powerful interjections from the piano and a skeletal outline of Paganini’s oft-appropriated theme. Carissa gave much style and character to the first grouping of variations, putting her fleet fingerwork to captivating effect.
In the more dramatic sections, however, it seemed the tone the pianist drew didn’t quite penetrate much beneath the surface. But the lyrical sections showed her best sides: the expressive first presentation of Dies irae, and certainly the beloved 18th variation. Given with genuine affection, it skirted the saccharine. And despite being such a show-stopping moment, it seemed to grow organically out of what preceded. The final six variations breezed by in a whirlwind with a particularly dazzling passage in octaves, supported by coloristic playing from the orchestra. Ten extra points to Carissa for selecting an encore by Rachmaninov’s contemporary Nikolai Medtner. The rippling bass and languid melody of the Fairy Tale in E minor (Op.34 no.2) painted a rarefied fantasy world from the keyboard.
Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony began with the resonant sounds of a pleading clarinet intoning the so-called Fate motif which binds the work together. Following the somber introduction, matters quickly grew to great urgency and drama, with Vänskä conducting almost as a brisk march. There was taut, masterful control across the work’s wide dynamic range. The PSO can sometimes come off a bit brash when above forte, but not so on Friday. A heart-wrenching paragraph in the low strings gave way to the slow movement’s great horn solo, magnificently played by William Caballero.
The music crested to passions in heart-on-your-sleeve fashion, but a rare lighter moment was to be had in the third movement waltz, lilting and elegant. The Fate theme heard at the top of the finale was deftly transformed, as if world-weary from the long journey, and Vänskä marshaled his forces one last time for the work’s triumphant coda.
