Word: concerto
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Like his contemporary Chopin, Liszt was immeasurably better at writing for piano than for orchestra. In either of his two piano concertos, every part except the soloist's will seem like mere accompaniment. This was especially true in this performance of Liszt's second concerto, in A, where Yukiko Sekino '99, the winner of HRO's Concerto Competition, dwarfed her colleagues with her huge technique. Though her double notes left something to be desired (and whose don't?), her fearless and flawless octaves, the sine quibus non of Lisztian bravura, eradicated this quibble. A duet passage with principal cellist Steve...
...flat piano concerto, K. 271, is Mozart's best such early work. It shows a surprising willingness to disturb the conventionally perfect balance between soloist and orchestra and is driven mostly by the pianist, who must have great endurance. Haefliger, who played with an accompanist's ear when necessary, gracefully allowed Laredo to rescue the concerto from merely unilateral appeal...
Sunny and pleasing music continued in the second half of the program, which featured Josefowicz as the soloist in Haydn's first violin concerto. Since she has a technique that can handle the Tchaikovsky and Sibelius concertos, Josefowicz was not troubled by the simpler Haydn and focused on achieving beauty of tone. She made even spiccato bowings sound lovely. Her upper register was uniformly pure, and she was better than before at blending; she and Laredo made a good team...
...This concerto has a late-classical sound unusual for music written fewer than twenty years after Bach's death. Though the structure and idiom of the middle movement were predictable, the finale was full of surprising figures and irregular phrases. The orchestra met the movement's polyphonic and rhythmic demands and maintained the character of the dance...
Laredo seems to be a better symphony conductor than a concerto conductor, since the Mozart offered him a chance to think like the concertmaster he used to be. The strings were together and the winds were together. If Laredo's choice of tempi was often less than daring, he made up for it by successfully turning the minuet into a scherzo. He seemed to want the fourth movement to sound like Mendelssohn's "Italian" symphony, with pleasing results...