The weekend`s heat wave proved to be a boon for the Ravinia Festival, where a huge lawn crowd turned out to hear guest artists who were hardly worth the trip.
Perhaps scores a bit less demanding than Saturday night`s all-Brahms program would have better showcased pianist Stefan Vladar and conductor Yakov Kreizberg. Alas, both were unworthy of the repertoire they had chosen.
Brahms` Piano Concerto No. 2, in B-flat Major, stands as one of the monumental works in the keyboard canon. Its epic scale, oft-grandiose themes, four-movement design and considerable technical hurdles require a pianist who can summon great reserves of power and tone. In addition, a grasp of the concerto`s classical structure and an ability to project long, singing lines against a large orchestral accompaniment are essential.
Vladar, an Austrian pianist making his Ravinia Festival debut, offered none of the above. Though his shaping of the opening theme was promising, his subsequent efforts revealed a faint tone, a remarkably unsure technique and an inability to come to terms with the heroic gestures of this music.
Instead, Vladar tended to overpedal tricky passages that should ring out clearly, and he frequently landed on wrong notes while attempting the work`s large leaps for right hand. Worse, his wan, smudged sound had nothing to do with Brahms` bold, nearly symphonic keyboard style.
The accompanying Chicago Symphony Orchestra could play this score from memory, so all went efficiently, if not persuasively, under Kreizberg`s baton. The second half of the program proved to be nearly as dismal as the first, though in different ways. Kreizberg, at least on this occasion, suggested a conductor whose motions are carefully choreographed in advance and communicate almost nothing to the musicians on stage. His only imprint on Brahms` Fourth Symphony was an absurdly fast tempo in most movements.
Ultimately, Kreizberg`s attempt to speed up the most autumnal of Brahms`
four symphonies represented little more than glib revisionism. The music raced by, with the conductor offering no hint of the work`s structural details or the way one theme develops into the next.
