Fire and Ice Usher in 2010 for Järvi and the CSO

Denis Matsuev

The "white death" -- snow -- may have kept some people away from Friday morning's Cincinnati Symphony concert at Music Hall, but for those who came, it was about as fired up as it gets.
  In fact, pianist Denis Matsuev's performance of the Rachmaninoff Third Piano Concerto would have been a "word perfect" opener for the CSO season last September, which was labeled "Sizzling Hot," though that's usually not how one describes Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 2 (even with Lang Lang, who bent over backward to give it classic polish).
   This was the real thing -- finger-numbing, roof-shaking, blazing hot (I'm sure the stage trembled under the musicians' feet).  It was soft and tender, too, when called for, as in the lovely second movement, where passionate outbursts also occurred.
   Wisely perhaps, music director Paavo Järvi opened with the Rachmaninoff Concerto, for Messiaen's "Le tombeau resplendissant" ("The Shining Tomb") was not only a CSO premiere, but is music of a deeply sober vein.  The concluding work, Mozart's buoyant "Prague" Symphony (No. 38 in D Major) had enough sunshine for everybody.
   Matsuev, 33, is a 1998 Tchaikovsky Competition winner and a prime exponent of Rachmaninoff's music.  Tall and bear-like, he plays with enormous power, aligned with utmost clarity and precision.  He can change the mood of the music in an instant.  This was particularly evident in the second movement, where softness yielded to perkiness in a totally engaging manner, like a new character taking the stage in a play.  His cadenzas were  overwhelmingly virtuosic.
   The finale exploded beneath his fingers in a fiendish display, though, again, interwoven with softness and contrast.  There was a gorgeous crystalline moment with Matsuev against the CSO strings played col legno (with the wood of the bow) and an ineffable oboe solo that conjured images of icicles gleaming in the sunlight.
   Järvi's accompaniment was sensitive and keenly calibrated, with the instruments clearly juxtaposed against the piano.  As always with this masterful conductor, the textures were pellucid, and you could hear every line of the music.
   Messiaen's "Le tombeau de resplendissant" was written when he was a very young man, just 23.  Yet it is a work about despair over lost youth and growing old!  The composer apparently discouraged performances of it after its 1933 premiere, and it was not published until after his death.  He left a poem with it:  "My youth is dead. I am its executioner.  Anger bounding, anger overflows!"  So goes the first stanza, and the music is hard, angry and repetitive, with rhythmic blocks striving against each other, ending with a hard stroke of timpani.
   The second stanza, "my youth passed within a music of flowers . . ." is delicate and illusory, with woodwinds against glassy strings.  Flutist Jasmine Choi's perfumed solo was a standout.  The angry music returned in part three. ratcheted up several notches.  The final stanza. "What is this resplendent tomb?" refers to the "tomb of my youth," beyond which the composer hears an inner voice: "Come unto me, all ye that labor . . ." (Matthew 11:28), a statement of his staunch Roman Catholic faith.
    It was a magical ending, with violas and cellos in a continuous melodic line over soft harmonics by violins and violas.  As in other works by the composer ("L'Ascension" and "Les offrandes oubliees") the music trails ever softly upward.  The CSO rendered the music beautifully under Järvi, who gave it distinct shaping and expression, leading to a transcendental conclusion.
   The CSO music director was at his communicative best in the Mozart symphony.  Tempos were brisk, textures were again transparent (how often do you hear such small details with such clarity?) and above all, the music radiated energy.  Watching him conduct was like seeing the music come to life, for he was lavish with his gestures, often rewarding the players with a smile.  By the end of the Presto finale, one would never have guessed that he had given them notice at rehearsal the day before that he will leave the CSO at the end of the 2010-11 season.  
   Repeats are 8 p.m. Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday at Music Hall, an abbreviated program that omits the Messiaen but includes a "talk back" discussion by Järvi following the concert.  Tickets at (513) 381-3300 or online at www.cincinnatisymphony.org