New Jersey Symphony Orchestra – Peter Bay, conductor; Andre Watts, piano. May 15, 2015.

Prudential Hall at NJPAC.  Tier 1 (Seat D17, $49.)

Program

Overture to Cosi fan tutte, K. 588 by Mozart (1756-1791).

Concerto No. 4 in G Major for Piano, Op. 58 by Beethoven (1770-1827).

Four Norwegian Moods by Stravinsky (1882-1971).

Concerto in A minor for Piano by Grieg (1843-1907).

Today’s program is Andre Watts, pure and simple.  Any one of the two concertos would have been sufficient for a respectable program, but today we have two.

Beethoven wrote his fourth concerto knowing his hearing was quickly deteriorating, and he was both the soloist and the conductor at its premiere.  In typical Beethoven fashion, this is a piece of contrasts, from one passage to the other, and between the soloist and the orchestra.  Delight is the word to describe the performance.

Grieg wrote the piano concerto when he was 25, and it has been a popular piece in the piano repertoire since it was premiered in 1869.  There is this story in the Program Notes about how Grieg met Liszt and the latter sight-read the piece flawlessly.  No doubt Liszt was a great pianist, but it is still amazing for him to do so, considering how difficult the piece sounded.  Incidentally, the Notes has a good description of the structure of both pieces, which added a lot to my appreciation of the music.

The Beethoven Concerto has three movements: Allegro moderato, Andante con moto, and Rondo: Vivace.  The Grieg Concerto’s three movements were not listed in the program.  They are (i) Allegro molto moderato; (ii) Adagio; (iii) Allegro moderato molto e marcato – Quasi presto – Andante maestoso.

The second movement of Grieg calls for a lot of horn, and the horn came through nicely.  The player was asked to take a well-deserved bow.

At about 70 – he was born in 1946 – Watts still could pound them out nicely.  I have only seen him in concert a few times, and keep wondering how exciting it must have been to hear him during his more youthful days.  He sometimes plays in a posture that reminds me of Linus (as did Trifonov), and doesn’t need exaggerated body movements or staring into the distance to get the mood across.

The audience broke into an enthusiastic and sustained applause and ovation at the conclusion of the concert.

The Mozart overture was an easy-listening piece of music that served as a great lead in to the concert.  Crisp and light, the way I like it.

The Four Norwegian Moods is a short piece, described as “humble” in the Program Notes.  It was intended for a film, but instead of making changes requested by the studio, Stravinsky withdrew the composition.  It resurfaced the following year in its current form.  The music is quite easy to grasp for the first time listener, especially when guided by the Notes.  Stravinsky insisted that the music is not an “impression” or a “state of mind,” and shouldn’t be assumed to have any “ethnological authenticity.”  Be that as it may, I certainly could hear a little folk (perhaps even Norwegian folk) in the four movements: Intrada, Song, Wedding Dance, and Cortege.

The piece was well enough received when premiered at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre by the Boston Symphony. However, when introduced in Paris in 1945 it was met with boo’s led by a young Pierre Boulez.  When the Rite of Spring was premiered (1913) it was considered a novelty, here the students were complaining about this neoclassical work as banal and insipid.  Be that as it may, I suspect nowadays the neoclassical Stravinsky gets heard a lot more than Boulez.

This was our first encounter with Peter Bay.  He looked quite young and was energetic.  (He can't be that young as he won a Young Conductor award in 1980.)   He has been the music director of the Austin Symphony for 16 years.  I thought he did a great job with the orchestra, and led a great dialog with Watts in the concertos.

Our seats in the first tier were good, a bargain at $49 (bought from Amazon Local.)  However, the acoustics isn’t the best.  We could hear the different parts, but they all sounded distant.

On our way to NJPAC we took the Turnpike to Exit 15E and then followed Raymond Blvd.  It was an easy drive.  We tried to do the reverse, but didn’t realize we couldn’t get to Exit 15E because of the Pulaski Skyway project.  Luckily the detours to get back were not too bad.