Shostakovich, Piano Concerto No. 1

Daniil Trifonov @daniiltrifonov , William Gerlach National Symphony Orchestra @kennedycenter / Gianandrea Noseda - Dmitri Shostakovich: Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 35 (1933) 00:00 Intro 00:11 I. Allegro moderato 06:40 II. Lento 15:01 III. Moderato 16:41 IV. Allegro con brio The Kennedy Center’s Concert Hall, Washington, D.C., USA / May 28, 2021 Michael Andor Brodeur’s Review: “I can’t tell you how excited we onstage are to see you here,” Kennedy Center president Deborah Rutter said from the stage of the Concert Hall on Friday night, moments ahead of a long-awaited reunion between the NSO and its audience. (Well, 32 of the former and 236 of the latter, in an auditorium that seats nearly 2,500.) The feeling was clearly mutual among the eager listeners who had gathered, spaced out across the hall in pairs and separated from each other by long gaps and dead rows. The hundreds of empty seats felt like a steady, silent signal throughout the evening that while the arts are evidently “back,” their return is fraught, actively contending with their own fragility. In some ways, the increased exclusivity necessitated by reasonable caution feels like a precipice all its own. […] Trifonov brought his now-distinct balance of brute force and beauty (frequently showcased on “Silver Age,” his most recent recording of works by Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Scriabin), but augmented it with a detectable extra dollop of menace. Noseda’s handling of the Lento movement guided its gentle surges of color — through which William Gerlach’s steady co-star of trumpet shot like a beam of dawn — and its brushes with silence. Taking the movement into his own hands, Trifonov slowed the tempo to the point you thought the music might break. Shostakovich’s punchlines and interjections seemed more barbed and sarcastic in Trifonov’s hands, and he attacked the cadenzas of the rollicking finale with stormy alternations of fleet-fingered ease and furious typing. Gerlach admirably kept pace with the finale’s rapid-fire finish — which felt like a wake-up call in the middle of the evening. (Overheard at intermission: “Boy, that Shostakovich sure is growing on me.”) […] A review on TASS: But here in America, for me this is the first concert with an orchestra after [the start of] the pandemic,” Trifonov confirmed. In December 2020, the musician played a solo concert on stage in Florida in the presence of an audience. [...] In an interview with a TASS correspondent a couple of years ago, he revealed plans to prepare a cycle of songs for baritone and piano based on poems by Vladimir Nabokov, Joseph Brodsky and Arseny Tarkovsky. When asked to say how things are going with this work, Trifonov replied: “I haven’t finished it yet. Other ideas have appeared, and I put this project aside for now.” #DaniilTrifonov #Shostakovich #NationalSymphonyOrchestra #WilliamGerlach #GianandreaNoseda #KennedyCenter #PianoConcerto #Trumpet