With a soft, velvety touch, he took an aesthetic, rather than athletic, approach to the keyboard. Some soloists try to show off the virtuosity of their technique, instead of the virtue of the music. But Kuerti's extraordinary sensitivity to the music demonstrated that in the word "artist," the "art" is more important than the "ist."
Kuerti played two pieces, Mozart's "Piano Concerto No. 25" and a recent composition of his own, "Concertino for Piano, Flute, Violin and String Orchestra." Orchestral works by two French composers rounded out the program: Emmanuel Chabrier's lush "Suite Pastorale" and Maurice Ravel's compelling "Bolero."
For the concerto, Kuerti collaborated with Mozart's ghost. Merging his creative impulses with those of the composer, he rendered the work freshly yet faithfully. The individuality of his interpretation enhanced, rather than compromised, the integrity of Mozart's work.
It was not the playful, rapscallion Mozart, but the stately, elegant one. Kuerti caressed the keyboard with a fluid, connected legato, making the piano sound more like a string instrument than a percussive one. His tone was clarion yet warm.
Kuerti shaped the music. He built phrases, developed themes, and made clear the overall architecture of the piece. Quiet passages yielded an intensity that held listeners rapt.
Unfortunately, guest conductor George Pehlivanian didn't imbue the orchestra with the urgency to match Kuerti's. The musicians lacked the edge-of-the-seat excitement they have under a more precise baton.
Minor tempo problems peppered the concerto. Pehlivanian didn't always have the orchestra exactly in time with the soloist, especially toward the end of the second movement. Although the concerto enchanted the audience, perhaps even more magic could have been conjured if Kuerti had conducted from the keyboard, as he sometimes does.
Kuerti has also composed off and on since his teen years. Yesterday's program opened with his delicate "Concertino." The moody, pensive piece was at times romantic, despite the modern dissonance.
As melodic segments tossed between solo instruments and orchestra, they took on the different coloration of the solo violin, flute, and piano and the string ensemble. Violinist Claire Sakai Hazzard played with her customary sensitivity and finesse. Laurie Lake's solo flute was both sonorous and agile. Both worked fluidly with Kuerti.
Pehlivanian ably led the concert's all-French second half, which went from Chabrier's bucolic innocence to Ravel's beguiling temptation.
Chabrier's "Suite Pastorale" came from the long and lovely tradition of idealized countryside scenes depicted in music. Created in 1880, the same time as French Impressionist paintings, the suite charmed with the prettiness of its visual counterparts.
Flutes fluttered like birds. Delicate brush strokes of breeze riffled the triangle. Soft cellos cast a meditative spirit. Most effective was Chabrier's technique of beginning or ending a movement with one quiet solo instrument. The final movement had a sense of joy in the orchestral writing that looked forward to Aaron Copland's simple ebullience.
The drive of Ravel's "Bolero" ensnared listeners. Its relentlessness seduced rather than suffocated. As with Samuel Barber's popular "Adagio for Strings," simplicity pulled emotions taut.
Curvaceous reeds and brass wound the sinuous melody against the drum's military beat and strings' square pizzicato. A quarter-hour of the same melody, rhythm and key built the tension into a majestic finish. Feeling the physical release, the audience leaped to a standing ovation.
What: Pianist Anton Kuerti and guest conductor George Pehlivanian with the Honolulu Symphony