The measure of Mendelssohn
Pianist Starr gives exhilarating performance of Concerto No. 1CONCERT REVIEW
By William Glackin
Sacramento Bee Critic at Large
May 18, 1997
Respighi: Gli Uccelli
Mendelssohn: Piano Concerto No. 1
Beethoven: Symphony No. 1
Susan Starr, Piano
Zvonimir Hacko, Conductor
It's always exciting when somebody gets a good grip on a so-called minor classic, shakes it into proper life and shows its true worth. Pianist Susan Starr did that Friday night with the Mendelssohn Concerto No. 1 -- with the collaboration of the Sacramento Chamber Orchestra and conductor Zvonimir Hacko -- and the result was exhilarating.
Mendelssohn was only 21 when he wrote it, but 21 is mature for a genius of his rank. He is said to have been inspired by meeting, on a trip to Munich, a beautiful young woman who was not only rich but a gifted pianist. In any case, when he came back a year later, he gave its first performance with great success. Mendelssohn knew its worth; he wrote to his family, "The work itself was really mad; the audience really liked it."
Susan Starr knew its quality, too: She tore into the sometimes stormy first movement with a thunder of her own. But there's more to the opening than thunder; she and Hacko and the orchestra found its lyrical departures and treated them tenderly.
There's a hint of condescension in the way some people compare this work to the later Violin Concerto, as if it were a mere precursor of that later masterpiece. This piece, as Starr showed us, is a masterpiece in its own right, but in a different mood much of the time. Things such as the dramatic way the piano and orchestra share the main statement midway in the first movement give it its own character. Shortly afterward, an equally dramatic trumpet call leads to a tender passage for piano that seems likely to be a cadenza until -- a brilliant stroke -- it proves to be a bridge to the singing slow movement (like the innovative bridges in the Violin Concerto).
The wonderful song of the slow movement starts in the lower strings and the horns and is presently picked up by the piano. The low strings sing it again, this time the piano finds a trill for it. There's a striking moment when a change of key leads to a darker singing, but the tenderness returns in serenity. It's prime Mendelssohn.
Dark brass ushers in a merry tune that would be banal if the piano didn't know its possibilities and show them in a vigorous, excited way. Toward the end of the romp, Starr's playing became so light her hands were flying upward off the keys as if they were hot to the touch. There was a pause for reflection, then the thunder returned for a grand finish. The audience in Westminster Presbyterian Church stood instantly and clapped for a very long time.
Starr is a remarkable pianist who has played with virtually all the great orchestras; fortunately, she hasn't left town yet. The second and last performance of the Concerto was scheduled for last night, but Starr will play no less than four other works in a concert with the Chamber Music Society of Sacramento tonight at 7:30 in the Recital Hall at California State University, Sacramento.
The Sacramento Chamber Orchestra, which ended its first season this weekend, gave one of its best performances Friday night in the Beethoven Symphony No. 1.
Though is has aspects that relate to the 18th century -- produced in 1800, it has been called (by Donald Tovey) a fitting farewell to the previous century -- it seems to us today unmistakably Beethoven. The minuet, for instance, is what the world soon came to know as Beethoven scherzo. The tentative chords of the opening, about which some of Beethoven's musicians complained, have a different sound. Although the delightful way the finale sneaks up on its main theme is, as Tovey pointed out, a Haydn kind of joke, the work as a whole is wonderfully full of Beethoven's voice, and this performance brought out its distinctive qualities with subtlety as well as power. The dynamics, particularly -- like the swift accuracy of the first violins in the softer passages -- reflected great credit on players and conductor.
Opening the program with Mozart's Overture to "The Marriage of Figaro," Hacko followed with a 20th century piece of great charm, Respighi's "The Birds." In five movements, it transforms tunes from early Baroque dance suites into descriptive orchestral pieces about "The Dove," "The Chicken," "The Nightingale," and "The Cuckoo," bracketed by music from a Prelude. It's fun to follow the orchestrations, even in the most unmistakable one, based on Rameau's "The Hen," Respighi's nimble imagination is remarkable.