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Brahms, Stravinsky and Schumann: Steven Osborne (piano), Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Tadaaki Otaka, Lighthouse, Poole, Dorset, England, 22.4.2009 (IL)

Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat
Stravinsky: Concerto in D ‘Basle’
Schumann: Symphony No. 4 in D minor


Heralded last weekend, by one UK national newspaper as a recommended concert of the week, this BSO programme did not disappoint. Otaka and Osborne gave us a thrilling, magisterial reading of Brahms’ epic Concerto. Osborne’s pianism was full of power and authority if a little lacking in Gilels’s celebrated delicacy and poetical subtleties in the quieter, softer passages and I am thinking particularly of the Allegro Appassionato second movement; but I am really splitting hairs here. Otaka provided a most affecting accompaniment, thrilling and tender by turn; all sections of the BSO shone, the strings for instance glowing warmly with Brahms’s multi-part string writing so beautifully transparent and cohesive. Joely Koos, the BSO’s leading cellist spun the solo part beguilingly in the Andante third movement.

Stravinsky’s twelve-minute Concerto in D, for string orchestra, was composed in 1946 in response to a commission to celebrate the 20^th anniversary of the Basle Chamber Orchestra. It is based upon the Baroque concerto form although the music is idiosyncratically Stravinsky. Osaka’s reading brightly contrasted its more biting elements with its Viennese-tinged lyricism. [By 1946 Stravinsky had moved to America, eventually settling in California. I mention this because I wonder if Hollywood composer and musicologist, Bernard Herrmann, heard this work and if its more astringent passages might have influenced Herrmann’s Psycho music?] 

Otaka’s high-voltage reading of Schumann’s Fourth Symphony combined bite and power and strong rhythmic impetus with lyrical warmth. The lovely second movement Romanza had another elegant cello contribution from the BSO’s Joely Koos. Another highlight was the thrilling realization of that wonderful bridge passage, the modulations between the third and fourth movements. An exceptional performance of this great, richly-conceived Romantic symphony.

Ian Lace


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