The Colorado Symphony’s month of pianists is ending on the same high level on which it began.
Veteran soloist Garrick Ohlsson, a 2008 Grammy Award winner, joined the orchestra Friday evening for a work brimming with comfortable familiarity, Johannes Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 83.
Though perhaps best known as a Chopin specialist, he demonstrated ample affinity for this music, delivering a big, full-bodied interpretation with the suave romanticism this work demands.
Bolstering his fine playing was the dynamic accompaniment of conductor Jeffrey Kahane. A world-class pianist in his own right, Kahane no doubt knows the solo part every bit as well as Ohlsson, allowing for a kind of intense collaboration that is rarely possible.
But as exciting as that performance was, the heart of this program lay elsewhere with the long, long-overdue Denver premiere of famed composer Jean Sibelius’ 102-year-old Symphony No. 3 in C major, Op. 52.
There is nothing grand, let alone grandiose about this work — no flourishes, no sweeping statements. In keeping with the aesthetic of northern Europe, it is spare, economical, unassuming. The music does not yield its pleasures easily.
Kahane is obviously a fervent believer in this underperformed masterwork, and he embraced its temperament, never trying to shape it into anything other than what it is. He deftly brought the symphony’s understated pleasures to the fore with a version graced with clarity, restraint and eloquence.
Opening the evening was the local premiere of American composer Pierre Jalbert’s “In Aeternam” (2000) a striking if not especially daring or original work lasting about 14 minutes. Though it contains jolts of discordance, the writing is solidly tonal, with rich, effusive harmonies.
The work was written as a memorial for a niece who died at birth, and its slow opening has the feeling of a barren landscape. The piece gradually speeds up, reaching a surprisingly angry, even violent climax before returning to the beginning mood.
The program will be repeated at 7:30 p.m. today and 2:30 p.m. Sunday in Boettcher Concert Hall.
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com
