Come for the Mozart, stay for the surrealism.
Review: Israeli pianist Roman Rabinovich performs spirited concert with the SPCO
The program includes works by Mozart, Igor Stravinsky and Francis Poulenc.
For the Minnesota Star Tribune
January 17, 2025 at 9:39PM
This weekend’s St. Paul Chamber Orchestra concerts don’t need such a sales pitch, for just about every ticket is spoken for. But this is a program of strange musical bedfellows that somehow manage to work well together.
Mozart is undoubtedly the main reason for the surge in sales, for an excellent Mozart interpreter is in town in Israeli pianist Roman Rabinovich. He’s the soloist for the D Minor Concerto, a piece with a slow movement that graced the closing credits of the film, “Amadeus.” At midday Friday, Rabinovich suffused it with drama, especially during a pair of arresting original cadenzas.
But seldom does a soloist just show up for an SPCO gig, play their concerto and go home anymore. In this case, Rabinovich chose to join baritone John Moore and seven SPCO musicians for a wild ride of a cantata, Francis Poulenc’s “Le bal masque (The Masked Ball).” It’s something like a piece of surrealist art, as if a Salvador Dalí painting were set to music, with filmmaker Luis Buñuel providing the comic and discomfiting lyrics.
Add a touch more Mozart and some Igor Stravinsky inspired by music of Mozart’s era, and you have what proved a wide-ranging and tremendously satisfying concert.
That extra dash of Mozart came courtesy of a rarely heard Horn Quintet. No, not five French horns, but a piece of chamber music that subs in a viola for one of the violins in a typical string quartet, then adds a French horn to the mix. It proved quite the tasty appetizer for Friday’s feast, with the SPCO’s principal horn, Matthew Wilson, displaying a rich tone throughout the ample range Mozart requires, engaging in a series of lively exchanges with violinist Eunice Kim.
If you need assurances that the SPCO is up to the task of becoming a conductor-less orchestra, look no further than Stravinsky’s “Basel Concerto.” That 1947 piece is firmly within the composer’s “neoclassical” period, when he was drawing upon the style of Mozart and Joseph Haydn for inspiration. But the degree of difficulty is considerably higher than on anything written back then. It’s a virtual jigsaw puzzle of shifting time signatures and erratic rhythms, and the SPCO strings made it fascinating with a Shostakovich-esque mix of menace and frivolity.
Baritone John Moore joined the orchestra for last month’s performances of George Frideric Handel’s “Messiah,” but Poulenc’s “Le bal masque” is stylistically miles away from that baroque masterwork. Moore was both silly and impassioned, belting out the oft-baffling lyrics with power and faux gravitas. And Rabinovich and the SPCO musicians expertly careened around the curves Poulenc placed before them, often at high speed.
And what versatility the pianist displayed by coming out after intermission and offering such a flamboyant and spirited interpretation of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20. He brought a stormy tone to the opening movement, particularly during a tumultuous cadenza that traveled from darkness to light and back again.
Similarly, the slow movement seemed a calm interlude until a thunderous trio section raged forth. And the orchestra matched Rabinovich in urgency during a finale both explosive and refreshingly reflective. The SPCO has long been an outstanding Mozart orchestra, and this pianist’s gifts proved a fine fit for them.
St. Paul Chamber Orchestra
With: Pianist Roman Rabinovich and baritone John Moore
What: Works by Mozart, Igor Stravinsky and Francis Poulenc
When: 7 p.m. Sat., 2 p.m. Sun.
Where: Ordway Concert Hall, 345 Washington St., St. Paul
Tickets: $16-$68 (students and children free), 651-291-1144 or thespco.org
Rob Hubbard can be reached at wordhub@yahoo.com.
The new Twin Cities Gamer Symphony Orchestra will perform songs from popular games from the early 2000s such as “Halo” and more at a free concert Friday night in St. Paul.
