Great concerts sometimes have a highlight. Others go from strength to strength, as did Thursday's matinee concert by Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.
It began with a remarkable performance of "Death and Transfiguration" by Richard Strauss. The composer was a young man when he imagined the deathbed scene of this tone poem, which proceeds through agitation and sweet dreams of earlier life to a vision of eternity.
Honeck began "Death and Transfiguration" at a whisper, not only the gasping strings but also the well-balanced wind chord. That blended sonority, in this case of the wind choir, was a defining characteristic of the performance, as was fervent phrasing. Brass sonorities were smoothly integrated and never swamped the strings.
As excellent as the Strauss was, the concert only got better. Strauss once commented that, while he might not be a first-rate composer, he was a first-rate second-rate composer. He idolized Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart but knew he wasn't in Mozart's league.
Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, which was played by soloist Yefim Bronfman, also is an agitated piece. But the shades of color in the Strauss piece are more on the surface than Mozart's nuances, which are deeper both psychologically and musically.
And if Honeck's Strauss was broadly paced and reflective, his Mozart with Bronfman was urgent. The piano soloist has plenty of technique for the big virtuoso repertoire, but was the discerning master of the classical style and feeling in this Mozart.
Bronfman's cadenza in the first movement was a marvel of concentration. The soloist also added considerable ornamentation in the Larghetto that became more delightful as it grew more extensive.
Honeck's interpretation of Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 was as bold, detailed and imaginative as one hopes a music director's will be. The music is rhythmic and energetic, unless badly done, but Honeck's vitality was exceptional.
The speed of the Scherzo was breathtaking. It is marked Presto, but this was so wonderfully fast that it even looked forward to the Scherzo of the Ninth Symphony.
The finale is manic, and was Thursday afternoon, but it was not rushed. Surging crescendi carried everything before them as the music swept to its powerful climax.
There were a few slips from overenthusiastic horns in the first movement, but when there was a moment of ensemble trouble in the violins in the Allegretto, Honeck was right on top of it.
