Music Review; Pianist Osorio Interprets Brahms Piano Concerto with Honeck in Heinz Hall

Music Review; Pianist Osorio Interprets Brahms Piano Concerto with Honeck in Heinz Hall

by Shuo Zhang

If you would like to attend a concert once in a while just to hear the less well known classical music and find them equally charming from the beginning to the end, this is the one for you. Last Friday, pianist Osorio joins Manfred Honeck with Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in a concert that features Brahms' Piano Concerto No.1 and Dvorak's Symphony No.8.

Brahms published his first Symphony at the age of 43 after years of revising the work. The piano concerto No.1, on the other hand, is one of his earlier works, and also one of those works to be rearranged and revised for different instrumentation from time to time, just like his Piano Quintet No.34, a forceful work with strange charm, which has a history of also being a string quintet and a piano duo. In the case of Concerto No.1, it was originally composed as a piano duo, and has been called by some as the "symphony with piano".

It is indeed a piano concerto that is big in every sense, and under Honeck's interpretation, the somehow unsettling first theme of the first movement reminds one of the strength heard in the famous Violin Concerto in D major, a most commonly performed piece of Brahms.

Mr.Orsorio, on the other hand, contrasts the massiveness of parts of the music with his delicate playing in some other passages, giving the music a fuller range of color. Known for his recordings of Brhams, Osorio is indeed one of those less well known but equally charming and masterful pianist.

A strong Bohemian flavor and the rural fresh air hit the audience in Heinz Hall in the second half of the concert with the coming of Dvorak's Symphony No.8, another equally charming work after the celebrated No.9. This symphony, often labeled as "Pastoral" following Beethoven's No.6, is also considered as having a hint of improvisational style that resembles a symphony poem.

The symphony captured the flow and contrast of the symphony, and depicts a vivid scene of bird singing and possibly some kind of rural religious ceremony in the third movement. The last movement was marked by the distinctive sound of the brass section, casting a remarkable liveliness to the finale.

The concert repeats on Saturday at 8:00pm.