Chicago Classical Review

Though Evgeny Kissin’s popular Orchestra Hall recitals bring him to Chicago annually, the Russian pianist last performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra over a decade ago. When his program with Andrey Boreyko and the CSO this week was initially announced, it appeared he would be making up for lost time by performing three Russian concertos in a single evening: Prokofiev’s First, as well as Rimsky-Korsakov’s and Scriabin’s standalone contributions to the genre.

This planned smorgasbord was subsequently pared back to a more balanced meal, however, with the Rimsky-Korsakov concerto jettisoned and the Prokofiev swapped out for Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 12. Fortunately the Scriabin was retained, as Kissin’s outing in this rarity proved a highlight of the season.

Scriabin’s Piano Concerto in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 20, is an early work, his first for orchestra, written when he was 24. Scriabin was a friend and classmate of Rachmaninoff, a kinship reflected in the concerto’s lush Late Romanticism, even if this reflects a style Scriabin would progressively abandon as he moved in more experimental, mystical directions in the 20th century.

The CSO has performed the work only twice previously, in the mid-90s. The last outing, in 1996, with Anatol Ugorski under Pierre Boulez, led to a memorable recording for Deutsche Grammphon, and Kissin’s commanding performance left one hoping it is not another 30 years until Scriabin’s only concerto is heard downtown again.

Cast in the traditional three movements, the piano enters with rhapsodic strains after a brief, ambiguous introduction from horn and strings. One hears the affinity with Rachmaninoff, but consistent harmonic pungencies alert us we are in Scriabin’s sound world. The Allegro’s character is by turns brooding and untroubled, and Kissin charted these shifts with virtuosic ease, with Boreyko drawing kaleidoscopic orchestral support.

The concerto’s highlight is its luminous central Andante, an affecting theme and variations. The piano enters after a delicate statement of the theme in the strings, weaving Chopineseque lines in and out of the orchestral texture. A more martial variation channels Brahms, and Kissin and colleagues palpably conveyed the ardent expression throughout.

There are further whiffs of Scriabin’s later innovations in the dark-hued Allegro moderato, as we sense the later visionary sorting out his influences as a young man. Kissin dispatched Scriabin’s challenges with bounding pianism, supported by Boreyko and the orchestra with cinematic sweep, the performance closing with clangorous barnstorming in a gleaming F-sharp Major, with the final piano chord resonating beyond the orchestra as Scriabin indicates. It is a shame there is only one further performance of this neglected work.

Kissin made a convincing but less revelatory impression in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 12 in A Major, K. 414. Perhaps not the most intuitive Mozartean, there was little to cavil over in his reading, but a certain grace felt lacking. The Allegro went with fluent elegance, with Kissin unafraid to introduce an occasional edge, and he captured the inward Andante’s few passing shadows and music-box innocence. Bareyko facilitated a genial dialogue in the closing Allegretto, a smiling, strolling affair in Mozart’s echt-Viennese vein.

Kissin offered no encores after either concerto on the ample program.

The music of Rimsky-Korsakov made up the balance of the concert. The evening opened with his Russian Easter Overture, Op. 36, a vibrant depiction of an Orthodox Easter morning service. Bareyko led a dreamy introduction, with acrobatic turns from concertmaster Robert Chen and poignant strains from principal cello Ken Olsen. The fiery body of the work has been played with greater urgency and assertion, though was adorned Thursday with fine solo turns from guest principal flute Jessica Sindell (assistant principal of the Cleveland Orchestra), clarinet John Bruce Yeh, and trombone Michael Mulcahy.

The Suite from The Tale of Tsar Saltan, Op. 37, opened the second half. Rimsky-Korsakov’s operas have never been as popular as his purely orchestral works, but this suite shows they are just as rich in his inventive scoring and Slavic flair, even if their plots tend toward the absurd (see the whistling squirrel cracking emerald-filled walnuts).

Boreyko led “The Tsar’s Farewell” with an apt sense of a regal leave-taking, military fanfares from Esteban Batallán completing the picture. One felt the undulating ocean in “The Tsarina in a Barrel at Sea,” recalling the ubiquitous waves of Scheherazade, and apian skittering of “Flight of the Bumblebee” registered afresh in its original orchestration. Boreyko helped the final “The Three Wonders” unfold with fairy-tale splendor, closing with further pomp courtesy of Batallán.

The program will be repeated 7:30 p.m. Saturday. cso.org

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