When Thomas Søndergård was named music director of the Minnesota Orchestra in 2022, there was some curiosity among audiences as to whether this Dane would bring us more music from his native country, as his predecessor, Finn Osmo Vänskä, had done.
And there has been some of that, mostly at January’s “Nordic Soundscapes” festival. But an interesting thread that ran through the 2024-25 season that concludes this weekend is how much of the repertoire was Russian. Whether Søndergård was on the podium or not, about one of every three programs in the orchestra’s “Classical Concerts” series featured a piece by a Russian composer and sometimes two, most of them from the 20th century.
For example, this weekend’s concerts cap the season with a devilishly difficult Sergei Prokofiev piano concerto from 1921 and the final orchestral work from the pen of Sergei Rachmaninoff, his 1941 piece, “Symphonic Dances.”
And if that’s what Søndergård would like the orchestra to explore, it certainly seems to audiences’ benefit. For Thursday’s midday concert at Orchestra Hall was a fine showcase for the skills of this ensemble, from the prancing playfulness and maniacal intensity of the Prokofiev concerto to the heart- and hall-filling sound of its strings on the richly romantic Rachmaninoff. Add an astoundingly athletic and articulate interpretation of Prokofiev’s shape-shifting concerto by pianist Bruce Liu and you have a tremendously satisfying season finale.
Even more so when you mix in a spirited take on Carlos Simon’s “Four Black American Dances,” a piece from the same year (2023) as his “brea(d)th,” a tremendously powerful piece that reflected upon the place of George Floyd’s murder in African American history. The Minnesota Orchestra commissioned, premiered and recorded the work to much deserved acclaim.
Thursday’s performance underlined the impression that this orchestra has a way with Simon’s work, be it through their thickly textured strings, mystical winds or the impressive choreography executed by three percussionists playing over a dozen instruments. It’s a very engaging work that taps into multiple traditions. If you miss it this week, its opening movement will close next week’s Juneteenth concert.
Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto is a very demanding work, and soloist Liu proved more than up to the task, smoothly navigating its shifting moods, intensely aggressive one moment, blithely playful the next. The first movement is full of rapid-fire cross-handed and cross-fingered phrases that Liu executed admirably, remaining relentlessly in motion throughout.
The wildly careening character of the concerto continued in a second movement that found the orchestra sometimes overpowering the soloist, but Liu brought forth all of the finale’s demonic dancing quality, both haunting and exhilarating, interjecting interludes of lush romanticism. A well-deserved lengthy ovation resulted in this winner of the 2021 Chopin International Piano Competition mesmerizing with the encore of a Chopin Nocturne.
