Guest conductor, violinist team brilliantly with CSO

One of today’s most prominent conductors, a rising-star violin soloist and the Columbus Symphony Orchestra shone in intense and beautiful performances of works by Lili Boulanger, Mozart and Brahms Friday night at the Ohio Theatre.

From the hushed dissonance of the first chord of Boulanger’s D’un soir triste, guest conductor JoannFalletta paced the orchestra with unflagging intensity through the work’s opening section. The middle section was darkly foreboding while also lush with vibrant colors.

In Boulanger’s D’un matin de printemps, the work’s fluid stream of modal sonorities and coloristic effects were once rich and brilliant. In Falletta’s hands, the orchestra glowed and sparkled through a tableau of morning freshness as vivid as any sunrise.

Violin soloist Alexi Kenney was a brilliantly understated soloist in Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3, K. 216, his interpretation unmarred by any pretense or artifice. His flawless technique and the masterful tempo and feel of Falletta’s beat brought light and air to the concerto’s first movement, where Kenney’s cadenza eschewed pyrotechnics in favor of impeccable clarity of expression.

The orchestra rolled along gracefully in the second movement as the backdrop to Kenney’s long-breathed melodies. The musicians made sheer poetry of the movement’s final phrase.

After the lilting finale, some audience members acknowledged Kenney’s gracious playing with a well-earned standing ovation.

Experiencing Falletta’s interpretation of Brahms’ First Symphony was like hearing the piece for the first time: Every tempo choice, every point of rest revealing a fresh, clear vision of large-scale architecture. In the symphony’s first movement, Falletta’s sustained drive through the retransition into the recapitulation was riveting, and her pacing of the coda enabled the orchestra to find its richest, warmest sound.

The second movement flowed through Brahms’ sinewy phrases without a hint of sentimentality. Concertmaster Joanna Frankel’s solos stood out for their assured expressiveness.

Falletta’s crisp tempo at the beginning of the third movement was a brilliant set-up for the transition into the rhapsodic middle section, which was radiant and free.

After the finale’s bold opening, Falletta paced the pizzicato sections of the movement’s introduction for maximum dramatic effect. The rest of the introduction was full of beautiful solos in the horn and flute and a trombone chorale beautifully played, before the strings sang the movement’s principal theme with ease and freedom.

The strings produced their richest sound of the evening in an encore — Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No. 1 — which the orchestra played full of Magyar fire and zest. The next performance will be at 8 Saturday evening at the Ohio Theatre.