Mozart, Shostakovich make a nice mix
19-year-old pianist Conrad Tao has talent to spare
National Arts Centre Orchestra Pinchas Zukerman, conductor; Conrad Tao, piano Southam Hall, National Arts Centre Reviewed Thursday, Nov. 28 Mozart and Shostakovich: possibly not the most likely concert combination that one might think of. Yet Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 19 in F and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 were at the centre of Thursday night’s National Arts Centre Orchestra program, and the combination wasn’t at all bad. The concerto is among Mozart’s finest, one is tempted to say. It certainly is a masterwork, but there were to be eight more in the composer’s series of 27, each of similar quality to this one. Almost any other composer would have killed to be able to write just one of them.
Although conductor Pinchas Zukerman is wont to over-finesse the music of Mozart, a pianist whose approach to the work is as lucid and vigorous as that of Conrad Tao tends to keep things more or less intelligent and balanced. There were a few overwrought moments in the orchestral introduction to the first movement, but such instances were less of an issue after the piano’s first entry. Tao’s playing was almost startling in its clarity of sound and purpose.
The Allegretto was especially ravishing. It is surely one of Mozart’s finest concerto movements and the playing was impeccable except for one thing: The upper winds were too reticent and ceded most of one’s attention to the solo bassoon and perhaps the first horn as well.
By the way, Tao is 19 and is still studying at Julliard and Columbia. His talent is almost beyond belief.
Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 in E minor is widely considered to be the composer’s finest effort in the genre. It’s a large orchestra piece and the NACO had never performed it before Thursday evening. There were extra players engaged for the occasion and, even if the result wasn’t an ensemble of quite the massive proportions that are sometimes deployed for this symphony, it was imposing enough.
This symphony was written not long after Stalin’s death during the artistic thaw that marked much of the Nikita Khrushchev era. It was an outpouring of long-suppressed artistic genius.
Zukerman led an authoritative and virtuosic account of the score. If the cumulative effect wasn’t as overwhelming as it can sometimes be, it was still an impressive achievement.