Pianist Awadagin Pratt can be so serious and searching a musician that one can forget he has chops to spare, and then some. He offered a welcome reminder of both his intro- and extrovert qualities in Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto on his return to the San Antonio Symphony on Friday under guest conductor Alexander Mickelthwate.
Pratt brought all the virtuoso equipment to bear on this most famously virtuosic of piano concertos huge power and velocity when called for, machine-gun execution of rapid octave runs, a crystalline pianissimo.
He delivered the jet-propelled byplay of the middle movement with astonishing delicacy and exuberance.
Pratt revealed his personal side most clearly in the first movement's unaccompanied passages. He played lyrical episodes with a luxurious touch and a bluesy feeling, and the pyrotechnics were electrifying indeed.
Mickelthwate's shaping of the orchestral score favored sweeping romantic lines that contrasted with Pratt's modern angularity, and there were a few times when soloist and orchestra didn't quite mesh.
But Mickelthwate and the orchestra made a splendid case for Jean Sibelius' Symphony No. 5, especially in the beautiful shaping of the finale.
(In engaging remarks from the stage, the conductor explained that the composition of the final movement had been inspired by the sight of flying swans.)
Mickelthwate's strong accents, fully expressed dynamics and precise tempo control rendered the score vividly but without excessive histrionics.
Principal oboist Mark Ackerman informs us that he awakened Friday morning with stopped-up ears and asked deskmate Brent Ross to play the first oboe part, which he did very nicely.
For that matter, the whole orchestra was in fine form.
The program opened with Last Round, an homage to Argentine tango master Astor Piazzolla, by the Argentine-American composer Osvaldo Golijov. It's scored for opposing bands of upper strings, standing left and right, with the cellos and double-basses between them.
The music an urgent, motoric first movement and a weeping, sometimes sweet second is remarkably attractive and rich. Its complex rhythmic layerings and sliding notes draw from the tango tradition, but there's also something of the Handelian concerto grosso in the counterpoint.
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