On one of those preposterously halcyon early-summer nights for which outdoor festivals must have been invented, the Grant Park Music Festival launched its 73rd season of symphonic concerts Wednesday at Millennium Park.
A happy sea of humanity (approaching 11,000, by my rough estimate) laid claim to most of the seats in the Pritzker Pavilion and extended to the farthest reaches of the Great Lawn — all to hear Beethoven and Brahms for free. And there was nary a cicada in sight.
A couple of times principal conductor Carlos Kalmar and the Grant Park Orchestra had to compete with the stray roar of a motorcycle or fire truck. But such minor nuisances are part of what makes Chicago’s spectacular lakefront playground such a grand adventure. If not for the unconscionable seating of latecomers during the music, the concert would have been virtually annoyance-free.
Limited rehearsal and the 90-minute concert format prevented Kalmar from treating the crowd to more adventuresome fare. Still, any chance to hear Marc-Andre Hamelin performing live is an opportunity not to be missed.
With his blistering technique and exceptional musical gifts, the Montreal-born, Philadelphia-based pianist has long been pigeonholed as a virtuoso with unusual tastes in repertory; his many recordings for the British label Hyperion have reinforced that narrow image.
Lately Hamelin has broken free of such stereotyping, as his excellent recent disc of Haydn sonatas and parts of his Brahms Second Piano Concerto on Wednesday revealed.
I say parts of the Brahms because I found his performance uneven, further hindered by the thin and reticent piano sound as heard at the front left side of the pavilion. The opening movement felt more like a warm-up exercise for everybody, with the pianist finessing the driving chordal passages but striking clinkers in his very first entry. He never quite equaled the heroic sweep Kalmar drew from the orchestra.
Matters improved considerably in Hamelin’s impetuous, light-fingered account of the scherzolike second movement, which contained his most rewarding playing of the evening.
The Andante suited the dreamy, meditative side of his musical personality, nicely set off by the sensitive cello solo of Patrick Jee. The gracious finale brought more dancing passagework from Hamelin, but again one looked to the orchestra to provide real Brahmsian weight, depth and structural rigor.
Kalmar began the concert with a taut, clean, vigorous but humorless account of Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony, the first installment of a season-long survey of the even-numbered Beethoven symphonies. It’s great fun to behold the conductor’s bushy gray mane flying when he gets worked up, but surely there’s more sly fun to be found in this symphony than he gave us on this occasion.
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jvonrhein@tribune.com
