Conductor Kahane,
symphony present
charming Mozart

Honolulu Symphony: Jeffrey Kahane conducts works of Mozart, Barber and Brahms. Repeats 7:30 tonight, Blaisdell Concert Hall. Tickets $15 to $55. Call 792-2000.

Review by Ruth Bingham
Special to the Star-Bulletin

Guest conductor and featured pianist Jeffrey Kahane (pronounced with two syllables, not the local way) led the Honolulu Symphony through three centuries of music without ever leaving Classical style.

Kahane chose the epitome of Classical style, Mozart's sunny Piano Concerto No. 17, as the concert's centerpiece. His back to the audience, Kahane combined conducting and performing on a grand piano nestled in the heart of the orchestra, which allowed better communication than the usual soloist-in-front set-up.

I really like (doing both), Kahane said, "... because it brings out the camaraderie of the group. Orchestral playing should be an extension of playing chamber music. This was the way Mozart did his piano concertos; it's how (this music) was meant to be played."

How it was meant to be played remains an impossible quest, of course: decades of research into performance practice have shown we will probably never know definitively how, but experimenting with what we do know is intriguing and often musically enlightening. The trick is in successfully melding 18th- and 20th-century techniques.

Kahane used a small orchestra about the size of Mozart's, around 40 musicians, but he also used a modern concert grand, not Mozart's light little fortepiano. The combination did not cause the imbalance one might expect, partly because the rest of the orchestra played modern instruments as well, and partly because Kahane removed the lid of the piano, allowing the resulting softer, less distinct sound to mesh with the orchestra's.

The result at Sunday's concert was a striking shift in focus from the glory of the soloist to the music itself. Dialogues between piano and orchestra were often strong and the two "voices" integrated well, especially in the third movement.

More problematic, however, was Kahane's mix of conducting styles: late 18th-century conductor/pianists (we believe) played along with the orchestra, improvising an accompaniment during "orchestra only" sections. Conducting consisted primarily of setting tempos, giving cues, and intermittently helping the orchestra through out-of-the-ordinary passages.

During "orchestra only" sections on Sunday, Kahane stopped playing and conducted 20th-century style, giving beats and general directions in addition to tempos and cues.

Surprisingly, there was an audible difference between when the orchestra followed Kahane's conducting and when the orchestra relied on their ears while Kahane played. Ensemble and blend were actually better when Kahane was not conducting; in fact, most of the moments of rough ensemble occurred during shifts between Kahane's two roles.

Overall, Kahane's Mozart was charming as well as intriguing, allowing the audience to hear a familiar work in a new way and to rethink their expectations.

Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, which replaced the announced Essay No. 1, opened the concert. Barber's popular Adagio, composed in 1936, has such a Classical air about it that some cynics have described it as a way to listen to 20th-century music without having to listen to 20th-century music: it is unabashedly beautiful, with overlapping melodies building into a long crescendo.

Kahane conducted Adagio on the edge of too slowly, emphasizing its sustained lines and emotional depth, and chose a homogenous sound rather than the treble-bass dichotomy that can drive the crescendo.

Kahane's closing decrescendo past pianissimo into nothingness was especially breathtaking.

Brahms' Second Symphony, composed in 1877, about two-thirds of the way between Mozart's Piano Concerto and Barber's Adagio, filled the second half of the concert.

According to Kahane, Brahms' symphonies were "an attempt to preserve a musical language that was already past. ... Paradoxically, I think the Romantic (in Brahms) comes through more clearly when you play it Classically."

Judging by Sunday's results, Kahane may have a point. Brahms, overblown, can sound like a poor imitation of Beethoven. But when played with a moderately sized orchestra and with Classical proportions, as Kahane did, the audience could hear Brahmss distinctive Romantic voice.

Although he occasionally seemed to take the orchestra by surprise, eliciting ragged entrances or anemic chords, Kahane also created wonderful passages, especially in the second and fourth movements: singing cellos, delicate counterpoint, and a powerhouse finale.

In all three pieces, each presenting a different facet of "Classical style," Kahane proved to be an intense and thought-provoking conductor.

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