Featuring:
- Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 2
- Olli Mustonen The Old Church at Petäjävesi
- Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4
Olli Mustonen - Piano/Director
I was really looking forward to this concert only to be let down big time. The two Beethoven's piano concertos came up really short, and included some awkward phrasings and quirks that I don't really enjoy at all. Olli Mustonen is a fine pianist, but his readings of Beethoven's concertos left me cold. With the 2nd piano concerto, I missed the clarity of the notes. Also, throughout the whole concert, Olli seemed to play a lot of final resolving notes of a phrase so softly that I almost cannot listen to them. This is really annoying me and sometimes I just have to make up the sound of that resolving notes to complete the playing of a beautiful phrase in my mind. Directing and playing a piano concerto will always be a challenge, and it's really frustrating when the ensemble wasn't perfect, e.g. a couple of mistimed entries, and the balance of the orchestra was really off. On top of that, Olli busted out quite a number of wrong notes in the 4th piano concerto. His cadenzas are weird, sort of jazzy and sound 'pop'ish. The last movement of the 4th concert was interpreted like a horse galloping to finish line. Fast tempo and nothing else. I can't honestly say I felt any of the soul from the performance of this favourite Beethoven's concerto of mine. The audience clearly didn't share my opinion and cheered loudly for the performance. Well, I guess it's hard to stay put after you listened to the finale's brilliant coda.
This frustrating performance got even more frustrating for me when in the beginning of the 4th PC during the magical chords of the opening, which for me is a big factor of the enjoyment of this concerto, an audience member sitting right behind me said 'oh, I love this' right when she recognised that magical chords. Thanks very much for speaking out my mind lady, but I prefer if you keep it to yourself next time. Also, in the 2nd movement of the same concerto, someone tried to unwrap candy in the prayer-like section till the end of that movement. Thanks for ruining the performance further. What a joke. I swear I'm not going to let anyone sitting beside me to do this thing in a concert although there's a good chance he/she won't like me very much after that.
It might be a very frustrating concert, but there's some good moments here. Olli Mustonen's symphonic-suite music is actually quite enjoyable. The music, depicting an old church in a Finnish city, is in 5 movements. The first depicting the activity of builders of the church with changing and time signature and ends suddenly. Sacred Touch, the next movement, highlights the beautiful woodwinds writing for it. The Demons, and St. Christopher (3rd and 4th movements) are my favourites with the highlight definitely goes to the slightly out-of-tune hymn-singing portrayal. The finale ends as sudden as the opening. When I think about the piece again at the end, I think it definitely has a lot of the ideas from Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.
The best moment of the concert is the encore Mustonen gave after curtain calls for his Beethoven's 4th performance. Here, he found the touch, the clarity, the sensitivity, and the sonority to express chorale-like melodies found in the piece. Sadly, I would never know what it is.
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3 comments:
For an encore Mustonen played the 1st movement from Schumann’s Gesänge der Frühe “Songs of Dawn”, Op 133. Apparently this was Schumann’s last coherent solo piano piece before he went mad. It was a personal and emotional offering with an eerie peacefulness. With this, Mustonen’s light and cheerful staccato playing disappeared. So beautiful – I sighed with content.
I went to hear Mustonen playing last night at the Melbourne Recital Centre. He played Beethoven's No 1 and No 5 piano concertos. I was deep deeply disappointed. It was like a rough-and-ready romp throughout both. And his interpretation of Beethoven's markings was truly awful. I felt like saying to him, "Please go to a master-class or two or really, three - what you do with what is written in the score is a true travesty." He should desist from playing any of these concertos until he talks to Barenboim and Lang Lang :)
Hey furtherchirps,
Thanks for the comments and info about the encore, and especially well done for finding this review in the first place!
I haven't been updating this blog as my personal life is taking over, and I don't go to as many concerts as I would have liked any more due to various reasons.
Last year, I attended the concert with Beethoven's 3rd and violin concerto transcriptions which was a little bit better than the 2010 concert although I still came out from the hall feeling disappointed.
I had plan to go to Mustonen's last concert to complete the Beethoven concerto journeys, but based on your opinion of the concert, I'm glad that I didn't go in the end. It looks like Mustonen stuck with his own quirky Beethoven's concerto interpretation which both of us didn't enjoy.
Having said that, I have a feeling that the majority of the audience gave him a standing ovation - can you please confirm that? I can only shake my head in disbelief every time the audience did that which lead me to question myself, "am I the only one with the bad musical taste in the hall that I don't enjoy his performance?"
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