Making his Cleveland Orchestra debut this weekend was Japanese conductor Kazuki Yamada. His program coupled two substantial works, one familiar, the other, not so much. Mozart’s Piano Concerto no. 25 in C major occupied the first half, bringing back to the Severance Hall stage Francesco Piemontesi.
The bold orchestral opening was regal and weighty, though its sunny key of C major was clouded by shades of minor almost from the beginning. I enjoyed watching Yamada’s graceful conducting as his baton artfully floated through time and space. A simple figure in the piano marked the soloist’s entrance, growing in complexity but never without a directness of expression in Piemontesi’s clear, no-frills pianism. The cadenza the pianist opted for was expressive and given with dramatic flair, highlighted by a clever invocation of the so-called Marseillaise theme introduced earlier.
The brass was a bit over-zealous to knock the orchestral balance off-kilter in the Andante, but the delicate piano was genuinely moving in one of Mozart’s most affecting slow movements. The effervescent finale was taken at a rapid tempo, but remained clear and articulate. A passage of dialogue between piano and winds was particularly lovely – one of my favorite moments from any of the Mozart concertos. Piemontesi returned with a touching encore in the Adagio from Mozart’s F major sonata, K332.
Elgar’s Symphony no. 1 in A flat major holds a special place in British music history, but isn’t a piece one encounters too often this side of the Atlantic. Fifty minutes in duration, it’s an extensive work, and the structure, orchestration and thematic material gave it a markedly different feel than the symphonies from the European mainland. In quintessential Elgarian fashion, a broad theme marked nobilmente began, growing from the gentle to the muscular. Subsequent themes contrasted to add tension.
Rapid, insistent material in the Scherzo gave way to a march, and a long-bowed gesture in the strings served as a connective fiber to the deeply poignant Adagio. Arching and serenely lyrical strings perhaps brought to mind scenes of the English countryside, and in particular, the Malvern Hills where the composer loved to spend time. This was generally not an evening of orchestral virtuosity, save for the symphony’s finale which had plenty of vigor and bombast. I commend Yamada for debuting with an unfamiliar piece even though the performance still felt like a work in progress, a bit rough around the edges. Nonetheless, I look forward to what future collaborations might yield.
