Here is my Saturday November 21 Chicago Sun-Times and suntimes.com review of the Thursday November 19, 2009, Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert with Paul Lewis, piano, and Christoph von Dohnányi, guest conductor. The program repeats Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m.
Pianist Lewis shines in debut with CSO
From prodigy to mature artist
BY ANDREW PATNER
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
With no hype and even very little standard promotion, Liverpool-born Paul Lewis has emerged in recent years as one of the world's finest pianists. At 37, he no longer should be judged as a "younger pianist" but simply as the great artist he is increasingly showing himself to be.
Two years ago, the shaggy-haired Lewis made his superb Chicago debut with Sir Colin Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra in Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto. A year ago, he made his Orchestra Hall recital debut in a rich, challenging solo program. And Thursday night, he at last played as soloist for the first time with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
For those who have been following this thoughtful musician, whether live or on his many harmonia mundi label recordings, all expectations were confirmed by his playing of Mozart's A minor Concerto No. 12, K. 414. Lewis somehow marries intellectual insight with total technical command and a true soulfulness. For those new to this soft-spoken player who manages to be both a non-nonsense performer and one capable of transmitting joy and subtle humor in his interpretations, he must have been a revelation.
The K. 414 is a work filled with booby traps that only the most careful pianists can avoid. There is an unusual back and forth between soloist and orchestra, a mixing of delicate and stirring passages, and a lightness that is deceptive in sounding easy to achieve. Lewis navigated all of these -- and even managed to integrate his own blend of the two sets of cadenzas Mozart wrote for this 1782 work along with some of his own figurations -- as if the work were written just for him. Audience and CSO musicians demanded several curtain calls.
Veteran German guest conductor Christoph von Dohnányi was backing Lewis every step of the way, breathing with him and shaping the reduced orchestra to match the pianist's take. On his own, Dohnányi led a sobering -- though never dull -- performance of Bartók's 1939 Divertimento for String Orchestra, often seen, as its name indicates, as a light and joyful work. Dohnányi, who was turning 10 when this work was written on the eve of World War II, and 15 when his own father was executed in 1945 for his role in the failed plot to kill Hitler, knows better. It was good, too, to hear the CSO strings showing their best after the Berlin Philharmonic's famed sections played here on Monday night.
Dohnányi closed with the Schumann C Major Second Symphony, Op. 61, giving the 1845-46 Romantic work more structure than it probably has and as a result making it much more interesting and fulfilling to hear than it often is.
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