It's always my pleasure to enter Heinz Hall seating area, meandering through multitudes of patrons mingling or searching for their seats, each of us as anxious as the other to experience the upcoming performance. After a prolonged period of cacophonous warm-up, the first selection was about to begin.
Appearing on stage were conductor Krzysztof Urbański and Noah Bendix-Balgley and immediately they commence the first selection: Khachaturian: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra. I noticed the first movement had frequent changes in tempo. Mr. Bendix-Balgley was impressive, this is an excellent concerto for him to show off his extensive artistry.
The first movement I noticed an orchestra melody solo and another counterpoint. Then followed a exuberant intermezzo solo. Mr. Bendix-Balgley was seemingly able to achieve robust, stirring sounds of harmony with only his violin. As the movement progressed, at times there was allegro and others softly rejoined melody. I noticed a vigorous descent from the orchestra, then tentative uplifting contemplative passages replete with the aforementioned romance.
After taking some time to re-tune his violin (the first movement was a complete workout for him and this instrument), the second movement began. I could hear the clear soft solo tones from his violin, yet later there were a few hints of slight dissonance, perhaps built into the composition, but the full tones that followed, accompanied by a flirting flute ruled the texture. Orchestra up tempo brought loud momentary volume followed by a passage with low-pitched violas only, a Russian sound deeply textured.
Soon the recognizable third movement came with robust melodic form demanding bravado. All together an extremely well present concerto, which I fully enjoyed. After a standing ovation, for encore he played a little tune he called Yismekhu. I hadn't heard of it before, so I asked him how to spell it at intermission where he was signing autographs. I'm glad he is still around with the Pittsburgh Symphony for now, after recently being appointed 1st Concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic, I wasn't sure.
After intermission came one of my favorite symphonic creations of all time - Pictures at an Exhibition orchestrated by Ravel and written for piano originally by Mussorgsky. First, though, was a presentation with WQED-FM’s Jim Cunningham and conductor Krzysztof Urbański, describing differences between the original piano versus the Ravel orchestrated versions. This included small demonstrations so that we could actually hear the differences. I had never heard the piano version before, and it was amazing in two respects. First, the piano rendition was amazing. Second, the way that Ravel could transform each part, ascribing different instruments to just the right parts and components, bringing it all together into an amazing congruous whole, now that was impressive exhibition!
As for the pictures, these photos were taken by my friend Miki Sarkozi before the concert and after intermission. The string ensemble appeared prior to the concert, they were students or alumni of Grove City College and played quite well.
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