Marin Alsop is a sure thing.
From the warm applause that greeted her at Boettcher Concert Hall on Friday night to the last note of Piotr Ilyich Tchai kovsky’s Symphony No. 4 that was flawlessly rendered under her baton, the Colorado Symphony Orchestra’s conductor laureate confirmed yet again her place among today’s finest conductors.
Alsop was recently appointed as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and she was awarded a “genius grant” from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation this month. But to CSO patrons, the popular maestro is first and foremost a musical marvel they’ve learned to trust and admire.
Even in an arguably prosaic program of classical standards, Alsop laid bare every shade and shadow of Tchaikovsky’s programmatic symphony. Sans orchestral score, she summoned the CSO musicians to deliver a brilliant, heartfelt performance of the composer’s journey from self-absorbed melancholy to life-affirming joy.
The result was a succession of memorable highlights too numerous to mention, from the fine performance of the brass section in the first movement to the brisk pacing of the remarkably precise and enlivening pizzicato movement and the forceful, fiery finale.
Less compelling was pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet’s rendering of Edvard Grieg’s romantic and virtuosic Piano Concerto in A minor.
There’s no doubt that the flashy and flamboyant Frenchman – sporting a shock of bleach-blond hair and an oversized dinner jacket – is an intuitive musician with impressive keyboard technique. But there was a sense of carelessness about his playing, which is a shame given his considerable artistic proficiency revealed in previous Denver appearances.
Among the superb phrasings that ricocheted among Thibaudet, Alsop and the full orchestra, the 44-year-old soloist fuddled several other passages, as if he couldn’t be bothered with the clichéd score. It was Alsop who infused the work with excitement and drama, bringing Thibaudet along for the ride.
The program opened with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3. In the dense, 15-minute symphonic poem, Alsop and the CSO conveyed an atmospheric and compelling dramatic sequence, from tragedy to acceptance and emancipation.
The concert, the first of three Masterworks programs this season, repeats today at 2:30 p.m.
