Martin Helmchen in a performance of Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and conductor Kazuki Yamada. (Todd Rosenberg Photography)
By the time the renowned German pianist Martin Helmchen and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra came to the end of a bravura performance of Beethoven’s “Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Minor” at Orchestra Hall on Thursday, there was one overwhelming wish to be made: that somewhere in the great beyond of the afterlife, Beethoven was suddenly fully able to hear his early masterwork (written before he was plagued by the loss of hearing) in an absolutely glorious rendering. He could applaud the brilliance of Helmchen and the CSO musicians, as well as the impeccable conducting of the graceful Kazuki Yamada.
The audience clearly could not have agreed with me more, and its endless applause brought Helmchen back to the piano for a solemn rendering of J.S. Bach’s “Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ” (“I Call to You, Lord Jesus Christ”).
Capturing every mood shift of the Beethoven masterpiece, Helmchen’s rapid-fire, crystalline playing — with its seamless speed, intensity and mood shifts — was breathtaking, as was the ensemble of winds, horns, trumpets and timpani behind it. He made every moment of the music speak, and there was an ideal synchrony between him and the orchestra throughout. A true poet of the piano — as was Beethoven — in a work that shifted easily from intensity to lightness, Helmchen displayed fabulous speed-of-light fingering at one moment and lyrical grace at another. He was matched throughout by Yamada and the orchestra. An unforgettable rendering of a dazzling work.
Opening the concert was “How Slow the Wind,” a brief but subtly haunting piece by the late Japanese composer Tōru Takemitsu, composed in 1991. The always wonderful program notes written by Phillip Huscher explained that Takemitsu was inspired by a line from an Emily Dickinson poem (“How slow the Wind - how slow the sea - how late their Feathers be!”). And as the composer himself had noted, his piece was meant to “move in a repetitive cycle, like waves or the wind.”
Conductor Kazuki Yamada makes his Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut in a program featuring the CSO’s first performance of Takemitsu’s “How Slow the Wind.” (Todd Rosenberg Photography)
The concert’s second half was devoted to Cesar Franck’s “Symphony in D Minor,” a large-scale work dating from the late 1880s that is marked by intensely dramatic, frequently repeated mood shifts.
The symphony opens with a solemn sound from the low strings and soon shifts into a state of emotional explosion with a loud, angry blast from the brass and the full orchestra. That is followed by a lush, singing segment and another blast of sound that settles into a state of calm. Next comes a dreamy, more delicate sound that again shifts dramatically to the brass and leads into the massive, stormy music of the full orchestra.
The work’s second movement begins with the strings plucking and a beautiful melody from the French horn with a later addition of winds and harp setting a mood at once dark and lyrical. And the third and final movement opens with a great burst of sound and a familiar melody that builds in intensity and taps into a lyrical beauty. The constantly shifting moods ultimately generate a wild fury, then a state of calm and dreaminess, and ultimately build into a big blast of sound.
My overall recommendation can simply boil down to this: Do not miss Helmchen’s spectacular rendering of the Beethoven concerto. Unforgettable.
This concert will be repeated at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and Tuesday at Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Ave. For tickets, visit cso.org or phone 312-294-3000.
Follow Hedy Weiss on Twitter: @HedyWeissCritic
