It sounds like hyperbole, but it’s not.
The Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival gives classical-music fans something that no summer series anywhere else can match — the chance to hear multiple concerts by three top-drawer orchestras over a span five weeks.
One of those ensembles — the distinguished Philadelphia Orchestra — is back in Vail for its fourth visit, and the opportunity to experience it was reason enough to make a trek to the mountains.
But the orchestra’s concert Friday evening in the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater offered two additional attractions — an attention-grabbing piano soloist, Jeremy Denk, and a fast-rising French guest conductor, Ludovic Morlot.
Both got to show off their talents during the program’s centerpiece: Edvard Grieg’s beloved Concerto in A minor for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 16.
The very epitome of a romantic-era work in this form, it is elegant and ingratiating, so much so, in fact, that it can slide into schmaltz if not handled properly.
But there was no danger of that with Denk, who brought the right dose of suaveness to this music, while keeping a keen emphasis on clarity and rhythmic exactitude and not trying to oversell it.
Only during the climax of the long cadenza at the end of the first movement did he go too far with his big gestures and foot stomps, detracting from the intriguing, jazzy feel he brought to much of the rest of the solo.
The exuberant Morlot, smiling and even silently singing along at times as he conducted, provided suitably responsive accompaniment.
He has enjoyed a meteoric career rise. Just nine years after a fellowship at the Tanglewood Music Center, he was named music director of the Seattle Symphony in June.
Given the buzz around him, it was only natural to have high expectations of Morlot’s version of César Franck’s Symphony in D minor. But he did not fully meet them.
Certainly the amphitheater’s open-air acoustics didn’t help, but this performance did not deliver the kind of spellbinding nuance of which this stellar ensemble is capable.
The orchestra ends its nine-day Vail residency with a final concert at 6 p.m. Saturday. Up next: the New York Philharmonic.
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com
