Best Classical Concert: PSO Plays Mahler
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Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra were once again the team to beat for the year's top classical concerts.
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Years ago, a Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra official tried to sell me on publishing a separate Top 10 of the year for the PSO and another for everyone else. It bothered me then, but now I realize it was because of a misunderstanding of how I view this annual list. My conception is a list of the most engaging and compelling concerts of the past year, not necessarily the best performances. If it were the latter, I probably would fill the list with 10 from Heinz Hall. That's not a knock on other local groups, who also play at a high level, but a testament to the world-beating level of the orchestra.
So, the two PSO concerts I list are not the only that impressed me last year, they are just the ones that most engaged me. The other issue with PSO concerts is that sometimes one work will shine, but another won't (or fireworks will explode during a concert, which kept the excellent performance of PSO clarinetist Michael Rusinek soloing in a Joan Tower concerto in November off the list). Pianists Yefim Bronfman, Olga Kern, Valentina Lisitsa and Juja Wang, violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and Hilary Hahn, composer/DJ Mason Bates and conductor Gianandrea Noseda all shined (proving why Mr. Noseda was named a titled guest conductor of the PSO in September). But in the end, two concerts led by PSO music director Manfred Honeck were most compelling.
1. Pittsburgh Symphony, Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh, Children's Festival Chorus and soloists: Mahler's Symphony No. 3 (Heinz Hall, June 11)
Emotions flowed in this concert, and not just because Gustav Mahler excels in culling them from patrons in his lyrical Third Symphony. But this performance, and those of the weekend, marked the end of an era at the PSO: the last time we would see violinist Andres Cardenes sit in the first desk as the orchestra's official concertmaster. After more than two decades as the connection between conductors and the musicians, providing leadership and excellent solos (which he did time and time again in the Third), Mr. Cardenes was moving on. The night was charged with compelling, even haunting solos by trombonist Peter Sullivan, oboist Cynthia DeAlmeida and trumpeter George Vosburgh (effective from backstage, as was a snare drum earlier). And the singers, soloists and choirs were en pointe for a cathartic experience.
First Published December 23, 2010 12:00 am
