A real show

PalmNinth concert of the season for the Orquestra Simfònica Illes Balears at the Auditorium de Ciutat, which began with the peculiar , by the Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara, under the baton of a conductor of enormous presence in every sense, the Norwegian Rune Bergmann. He was, without a doubt, the one who turned the concert into a spectacle of dimensions that correspond to his own. Immediately after the ornithological composition came the first main course of the program, with pianist Olga Kern as the great protagonist, to perform the Piano Concerto in A minor op. 54, by Robert Schumann. He began the first movement, with a very solid, somewhat rocky style, and a very firm pulse, from the decisive entry of the piano, with a martial and powerful succession of descending chords, until reaching the polyhedral cadence of the finale, from where the composition's coloratura increased, with as much precision as elegance. Her interpretation was raising the level and delicacy, as for example, with the Andantino grazioso, a fun dialogue between the orchestra and the piano that, little by little, turns into a tender and subtle monologue of the solo instrument. Kern made her mastery and ability to suggest all this series of variations and styles that Schumann incorporated into the score, in a very novel way at the time, clear. The soloist, once again, resumed the energetic tone of the beginning, in an impetuous third movement, when, suddenly, she established a delightful new dialogue, this time with the oboe, as an announcement of the exceptional final coda that can only be described as exceptional and which served the protagonist to receive the enthusiastic applause of the audience. As it should have been and as everyone expected, there was an encore, first a Prelude, by Claude Debussy, which never disappoints or leaves one indifferent. Impeccable. And before the ovation-like plea, another little gem, by Nikolai Myaskovsky, a piano arrangement by Joseph Horovitz.

It seemed that everything was given and blessed, but it was far from being so. Another composition was missing, with very different characteristics, but which undoubtedly always create a superb mood in whoever listens to it. And if, moreover, it is with such an expressive, I would even say bombastic, conductor as Rune Bergmann, the gem is more than guaranteed. On the other hand, a stratospheric performance by a Symphony in a state of grace, which could do nothing but follow the heterogeneous indications of one who, more than ever, or so it seemed, was leading his ensemble where he wanted, with as much energy and subtlety, with as much ease as effectiveness, to suggest from moments of great nostalgia to others of energetic and profound lyricism, another portion of ornithology, which linked with the piece commissioned to open the evening. Another great evening.