PSO’s sublime concert celebrates Grammy nominations
This year’s Grammy nominations are out, and fresh off its 2018 wins, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra has been nominated once more — for best orchestral performance and best engineered album, classical.
The album in question, Beethoven: Symphony No. 3; Strauss: Horn Concerto No. 1, was released on the Reference Recordings label in September and features music director Manfred Honeck leading the orchestra and principal horn player William Caballero. The album also helped earn Dirk Sobotka a nomination for producer of the year, classical.
The awards ceremony is set for Feb. 10. A list of nominees is available at grammy.com.
So how does the orchestra celebrate? With a concert, of course. On Friday, Pittsburgh favorite Yan Pascal Tortelier returned to guest conduct music by Berlioz, Korngold and Rachmaninoff in Heinz Hall.
Mr. Tortelier led off the evening with bounce in his beat as the orchestra played Berlioz’s “Roman Carnival Overture” with humor and aplomb. English horn player Nora Prener’s warm, fullthroated solos added depth and dignity.
Making her debut with the symphony Friday evening was Dutch violinist Simone Lamsma. This season and last also saw her debuts with the New York, Oslo and Warsaw philharmonics, and other notable orchestras around the globe. Ms. Lamsa plays with a weighty, gorgeous sound, brilliantly capturing the more cinematic flairs of Erich Korngold’s Concerto in D major for Violin and Orchestra. (Mr. Korngold composed film scores for several Errol Flynn films, including 1938’s “The Adventures of Robin Hood” and 1940’s “The Sea Hawk.”)
Nevertheless, her playing left me cold on Friday — the opening movement was overly intense and came off a touch one-dimensional, while the lively finale with its virtuosic gestures felt repetitively phrased.
The evening concluded with Rachmaninoff’s “Symphonic Dances,” three unparalleled demonstrations of orchestral color. Mr. Tortelier and the PSO took full advantage, the former dancing nimbly, marionettelike, helping cue listeners into the finer details by means of his gestures. The orchestra was marvelous, each movement building in range and emotional scope until the relentless, pounding final chords.
With concerts such as Friday’s, it’s small wonder that the wider orchestra community is taking note of the PSO’s recent recordings. The newly Grammy-nominated album (available at pittsburghsymphony.org) has also been nominated for an International Classical Music Award.