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Master Series - 7. Amadeus Stephen Kovacevich, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra Adelaide Town Hall, Thurs 8 July The American born pianist/conductor Stephen Kovacevich makes a welcome return to Adelaide for a series of concerts that focuses on the music of Mozart and Wagner. In the last decade or so it has been Adelaide's wonderful good fortune to cement an ongoing relationship with this eloquent and thoughtful musician and this has been strengthened further by these concerts, which present Kovacevich as soloist and conductor. Celebrated for his keyboard interpretations of the music of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms, Kovacevich's performances have often been described as radical, though his approach is based very firmly on scholarship even if he doesn't tend to follow the often narrow and emaciated paths often preferred by original instrument specialists. His readings are often overtly passionate and driven, whilst they do not 'throw out the baby with the bath water'. Here is the all too rare exception these days - a pianist who is just as influenced by mid 20th century performance as musicology - and these excellent performances underline and justify his approach. Starting with the gorgeously chromatic Siegfried Idyll, the orchestra were in fine form. They responded exceptionally well to the conductor's broad tempi with the strings, seamless, in their building of Wagner's impressive arches of sound. Here was Herr Richard at his most Romantic. Indeed this piece was written as a birthday present for his beloved Cosima (daughter of Liszt) and contained many ideas that would be later adapted and extended within his famous Ring cycle of operas. Chromaticism was also an integral notion in the two late Mozart works chosen for the rest of the programme. The C minor concerto (K. 491) is perhaps my personal favourite within the Mozart canon. Not only does it require larger forces, its broad chromaticism pre-empts not only Beethoven and Brahms; in fact its very opening suggests the Schoenbergian twelve tone row (and this the reason why Glenn Gould chose to partner the Mozart and Schoenberg concertos in his 1961 recording.) It was also Gould who, in the late '50s, in live performances with Karajan, was the first to place the piano within the body of strings on stage. And this idea was adopted by Kovacevich, leading to chamber music-like clarity in the central adagio in particular, and eased in conducting from the keyboard. Mozart's final symphony, the 'Jupiter' followed in an eloquent and passionate performance that culminated in a superbly led final movement. From the smiles that passed back and forth between the musicians and conductor/soloist there is little doubt that this was a mutually enjoyable experience and we can only hope that Kovacevich returns soon.  |
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