Oural Philharmonique with Liss and Matsuev

Review by Henning Høholt,

PARIS/FRANCE: The Oural Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Dmitri Liss and with Denis Matsuev as soloist guested Théatre des Champs Elysees in Paris with a concert program presenting two works by Sergei Rachmaninoff his well known 3rd. Piano Concerto (1909) with Denis Matsuev as soloist and his Symphony no 2. (1907).

2nd. Symphony: – the “Oural sound”

In the 2nd Symphony the high orchestral musically quality

. in contrast to what we lost in the piano concerto part. The large thing groups has a wonderful sound, That I hereby will call the “Oural sound”, full of beautiful tunes, homogene, well formed and it was staying there as a brilliant group, that gave a safe, very beautiful emotionally – and flexible – like a whole mountain chain as an important base for the orchestral soloists to float on, and with that sound, Dmitri Liss could let his wonderful orchestra soloists play and show their expertise on top solo parts, –  obo, violin, trumpets, aso., that the audience loved

. Still that this Symphony no 2 by Rachmaninoff, to my opinion not is the most interesting, – it is like waves coming, rolling and going, repeating the same ideas. The orchestra strings leads on with the famous Oural sound well led by mr Liss, made it to be a great success.

Details:

Second part started elegantly with the first violinist leading the whole mountain sound, and on top of that with the good soloists in the brass and wood, as great hill tops, making it dramatic when needed. Good pianissimo timbals, a great sound and magnific fortissimo.

Third part starts in a “Viennese” style Where i got the feeling of that Rachmaninoff , of course, got a lot of inspiration from other parts of the world
. A good clarinet leeds on to Wald horns, Trombones and the Tuba, who laid a good basis and lifted it all up. It ends beautiful in the pianissimo Bratch.

Fourth part had a lively and fresh opening well contrasting the pianissimo ending of the third part. A good concert, and the orchestra replied for the long applause with a folkloristic encore.

3rd Piano Concerto with Denis Matsuev

– A boxing competition? – Steinway was the winner.

Was it beautiful? No. Was it good music? No. Was the pianist virtuose? Yes. 

HONESTLY:

Unfortunately, –  for me, This was the questions that I was sitting with during the piano concerto. Denis Matsuev is absolutely brilliant and virtuose, but for me it was too much brilliance and virtuosity, i was missing and underlining of the musicality and the beauty that Rachmaninoff has written in to this piano concerto, which in fact has some very beautiful small themes, that also Matsuev played well, but between them t was too much boxing, and I really hope that the grand Steinway piano survived, as this became, – for me – too much.

However the orchestra followed very well, and the conductor keeps it all together. The audience liked it very much and the pianist was happy and gave three encores, when he started on the first one, a beautiful pianissimo piece, i was feeling good. – Oh, he can really play beautiful pianissimo also.

The second was fortissimo, as the concerto, and the third, where he tried to make some modern jazz thing out of a tune was too much.

However a lot of the audience loved it.

And I am sure that some will return to listen to Denis Matsuev also next time.