Classical Concert Reviews Cinci

@cincysymphony opened its 2024-25 season in grand style with an equally grand program featuring 19th and 20th-century orchestral showstoppers (even if it was somewhat tempered by competing crowds for tonight’s FC Cincinnati match). Guest conductor Dalia Stasevska (@daliastasevskaofficial), making her third appearance in Cincinnati, opened with a truly exhilarating reading of the final Malambo from Alberto Ginastera’s 1941 ballet Estancia, featuring thrilling turns from winds and percussion in the final pages of the score.
Guest soloist Bruce Liu (@bruceliupiano), winner of the 2021 International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, gave a wonderfully evocative performance of Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3. There were moments however where the balance between piano and orchestra felt slightly uneven, mostly in the louder passages with full orchestra. Liu’s playing was virtuosic, yet understated and relaxed, particularly in the second and third movements. Tonight’s audience was then treated to a sensational encore in Frederic Chopin’s Op. 66 Fantasie-Impromptu.
Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, popularly known as the Titan, is regarded as one of the benchmarks of the Austro-Germanic repertoire. First performed in 1889, the symphony features many of the stylistic hallmarks that would come to define his later work, including quotes from Mahler’s own song settings and folk-infused harmonies healing back to his childhood in Bohemia.
Stasevska’s leadership of this work brought these to the fore in perhaps the most entertaining, visceral and emotive performance I have encountered thus far, honing in on not only the rhythm of the piece but the force and power hidden within each line of music. From the stillness of the first movement to the summit of pure joy and exhilaration in the last with blazing brass and percussion at full tilt, a thrilled audience and an immediate ovation was its well-deserved reward.
Looking forward to an appearance by Thomas Wilkins performing an overlooked symphony by Florence Price and banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck with a new transcription of Rhapsody in Blue at the beginning of October.