Tech issues bedevil a Grant Park Orchestra double debut
The Grant Park Orchestra soldiered through the summer’s most oppressively humid weather Wednesday night at the Pritzker Pavilion. Guest conductor Lee Mills and pianist Maxim Lando were both making their debuts with the downtown festival, bringing a joint youthful spirit yet resulting in decidedly mixed results in the sticky climate.
Two orchestral warhorses bookended a pair of concertante works for piano in Wednesday’s Iberian program. Mills led a fresh-faced account of Rossini’s Overture to The Barber of Seville to begin the night, highlighted by characterful solos from the Grant Park principal winds. While the opera’s only real connection to Spain is its setting, the trademark Rossini crescendos were built convincingly in Mills’ assured navigation of the ubiquitous score, the orchestra responding to his energetic leadership.
Ravel’s Bolero, another not-unfamiliar work, ended the concert. Mills is a five-time Solti Foundation U. S. Career Assistance Award winner, and at the start of a promising career that has seen him assisting big names with major orchestras, including the Seattle and Nashville Symphonies. He is understandably eager to make an impression, though Bolero is not necessarily the best vehicle for any maestro to showcase himself.
A conductor has three primary jobs in Ravel’s famous 13-minute crescendo: start everyone together, look at the principal flute four bars later, and make sure everyone ends together. Mills accomplished the first two, though the ensemble came apart in the final bars after the lurching modulation. Mills’ approach also seemed overly micro-managerial, demonstratively indicating phrases where a more restrained leadership is called for. Nonetheless, the GPO wind soloists all shone in their spotlight moments, particularly Alex Liedtke’s alluring oboe d’amore turn and trombone Jeremy Moeller’s sleazy iteration of the theme.
Grant Park’s online bio for 22-year-old pianist Maxim Lando was non-functional, but if one persevered in researching him one learned he is a Juilliard student, a prize winner of the 2024 Cleveland International Piano Competition, and a quickly rising star making the rounds of increasingly prominent orchestras. Unfortunately, this dynamic young man’s Grant Park debut was compromised by a serious misfire with the Pritzker Pavilion amplification, which often left him scarcely audible over the orchestral support.
Manuel de Falla’s luxurious Nights in the Gardens of Spain, originally conceived as a set of three nocturnes for solo piano, thoroughlyinterweaves the piano with the orchestral fabric, but there is a major issue if a hushed second flute and string pizzicati are overpowering the solo instrument, as was the case on Wednesday. One could see Lando’s considerable exertions, and he clearly has technique to spare, though this was only apparent in the rare moments in de Falla’s score where the orchestral texture was thin enough to leave the piano fully in relief.
Mills seemed to cast a few frustrated glances backward toward the sound booth, seemingly aware something was amiss, though the balance issues persisted. It was possible to appreciate the dusky, languid atmosphere he captured in de Falla’s fragrant orchestral interludes, but the technical limitations sank any chance of fully rendering the work’s collective impression with the soloist.
These issues continued in Busoni’s arrangement for piano and orchestra of Liszt’s Rhapsodie espagnole, though the impact was somewhat less lethal here given the score’s relative lack of subtlety. Lando possesses an undeniable virtuosity, and his vigorous bounding octaves were visually impressive, though came across as anemic over the pavilion speakers. His fleet articulation could be perceived in some more transparent moments, though with the bombast artificially flattened out in Liszt, there sadly is little left over.
The Grant Park Orchestra performs music of Rodgers and Hammerstein under conductor Larry Loh 6:30 p.m. Friday and 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Pritzker Pavilion. grantparkmusicfestival.com
Posted in Performances
Leave a Comment
Subscribe via RSS.