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Pratt spoke
language of Mozart

Awadagin Pratt: Performs with the Honolulu Symphony, 7:30 p.m. tomorrow at the Blaisdell Concert Hall. Tickets $15 to $50. Call 792-2000. Also 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Hawaii Theatre. Tickets $15 to $20. Call 528-0506 or 792-2000.

By Ruth O. Bingham
Special to the Star-Bulletin

LIKE Mozart, Awadagin Pratt is a multi-talented musician. In addition to composing, Mozart played piano and violin and conducted now and again when necessary. Pratt, in addition to conducting, plays piano and violin and composes now and again when necessary, the necessary here being interpolations for Mozart's A major Piano Concerto, K.488.

Pratt strode on stage yesterday dressed in scarlet and black and folded his long limbs onto a tiny bench, as if sitting at a toy piano. His performance with the Honolulu Symphony proved to be as idiosyncratic as his posture.

An extraordinary performer, Pratt revealed a style more alive, more thought-provoking than most. Yes, he improvised along with the orchestra's part, added embellishments and created his own cadenza, but those are now an accepted, if not yet expected, part of performing Classical music "authentically." What made his style unusual was its vibrance and unique nuancing.

Despite a rather lot of pedal (an apparently irresistible temptation of the modern instrument), Pratt displayed a sensitive, almost crystalline touch that lost clarity only in the third movement owing to an overly brisk tempo. Throughout, Pratt's wit and love of music was infectiously audible. What a joy to hear someone who knows the difference between melody and fill, ensemble and solo!

Mozart provided a cadenza, but Pratt improvised his own, a rhapsodic meander through heavily pedaled arpeggios to recurring themes, through transformations, modulations and back again, ranging further afield than Mozart's version. Was the cadenza Mozartean? No, but it was Prattean, which is the point of cadenzas: to allow performers expressive elbow room. If Pratt's additions seemed more Romantic than Classic, they were also apropos to his performance.

Pratt's interpretation was as "authentic" as Mozart gets on modern piano, which is to say Pratt did not pretend to "speak Mozart," but spoke clearly through the music.

An appreciative audience demanded and finally received an encore: the shimmering harmonies of Rachmaninov's Prelude Op.32 No.12 in G-sharp minor.

The rest of the program Mozart's Overture to Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Tchaikovsky's Marche slave and excerpts from his ballet Swan Lake bore conductor Stuart Chafetz's unmistakable imprint: light, energetic, fun ...

Chafetz, Honolulu's irrepressible timpanist, described conducting as "sitting in front of a great big mixing board: a little more flute, a little less trombone ... and, of course, a lot more timpani."

Kidding aside, there was a lot more timpani, other percussion and brass: the program seemed hand-picked for a vigorous romp and Chafetz led on adrenaline fast and furious. Tchaikovsky's soldiers double-timed and his swans reeled from too much coffee. In response, the orchestra delivered an uneven performance, ravishing solos by harpist Constance Uejio, concertmaster Ignace Jang, and cellist Gregory Dubay in a scene from Swan Lake offsetting a painful trumpet solo.

At the beginning of his conducting career, Chafetz has yet to define his sound and to savor lingering subtlety; he has, however, perfected boisterous excitement.

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