By Lawrence Toppman
A Shakespeare professor once returned my paper about “Othello” with the comment “An unusual idea, beautifully articulated and completely wrong.” I thought of that incident Saturday night at Belk Theater, as pianist Louis Schwizgebel tried to convince me Sergei Rachmaninov was Frederic Chopin in 20th-century clothing.
He joined the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra (CSO) for the Russian master’s Piano Concerto No. 2, fitted in after the U.S. premiere of Adam Walters’ “The Downfall of Gaius Verres” and before the Bacchanale from Camille Saint-Saens’ opera “Samson et Dalila” and Ottorino Respighi’s suite “Feste Romane.”
I have fond memories of Schwizgebel in Ravel’s G Major Concerto 13 years ago. He played Ravel with filigree attention to tiny details, introspective solo work, frequent rubato and a jazzy snap, and they all worked. He played Rachmaninov with the same elements Saturday, minus the jazziness, and they didn’t.
Schwizgebel seemed to have studied other great pianists (perhaps even Rachmaninov, who recorded all his concertos) and decided to do the opposite of received wisdom. But this big-boned piece needs an assertiveness he didn’t provide, and his delicacy was inaudible as soon as the orchestra rose above mezzo-forte.
You heard him mostly in solo passages, where he went his slow and thoughtful way. Only rarely did he rouse himself for thunder, notably at the very end of the underweight finale. He may have talked music director Kwamé Ryan into tempos that added droopiness without drama.
I say that because Ryan and the orchestra sprang to exuberant life in the other three selections, all of them extroverted outings that could have served Hollywood, an HBO miniseries, or a video game. (Two already have: You could’ve heard the Bacchanale in “Boardwalk Empire” or “Feste Romane” as the backdrop to the video game “Drakengard.”)
Walters, a British-born composer who knew Ryan as a fellow faculty member at the University of Trinidad and Tobago, packs tremendous excitement into his six-minute tone poem. It’s about Verres, an extortionist and thief who governed Sicily during the first century A.D. for the Roman Empire, and his legal takedown by Cicero. Brass and winds war, echoing the arguments in court, until the sudden and tumultuous conclusion.
After intermission, Ryan whipped the musicians into a lather for the dance from Act 3 of Saint-Saens’ opera, where Philistine maidens drunkenly and lasciviously taunt the blind Samson. Yet he took time to turn the temperature down a bit for a moody segment before the final frenzy.
Nor did the excitement tail off during Respighi’s “Feste,” sometimes considered the least sophisticated of his Roman suites behind “Pines of Rome” and “Fountains of Rome,” yet no less effective in Ryan’s hands. (Audiences who heard the concert broadcast live on WDAV couldn’t see Ryan’s podium ecstasy, so apt for this wild music.)
Respighi was a masterful colorist – he orchestrated five of Rachmaninov’s Études-Tableaux and won the dour Russian’s approval – and the orchestra reveled in effects from peasant cacophony in a town square to the weary trudge of religious pilgrims to a woozy celebration of the Feast of Epiphany.
Speaking of celebrations, symphony president and CEO David Fisk prompted one before the show by giving Alan Black an accolade. Black has played in the CSO’s cello section since 1986, much of that time as principal cellist but for the last three years as a section player. He stood, grinning modestly at the audience’s standing ovation, as Fisk announced his retirement.
He has also taught for decades and has created the Alan Black Young Musicians Fund to aid music students. You can donate through the CSO website, selecting “Give Today,” and adding a comment to note you want to support the Alan Black Fund.
Pictured: Louis Schwizgebel by Marco Borrgreve.