Palm Beach Post (Florida) — 07.11.2004

RUSSIANS DISPLAY CLEAN, LIGHT TOUCH AT KRAVIS CENTER,
Sharon Mcdaniel

Playing to its considerable strengths, the St. Petersburg (formerly the Leningrad) Philharmonic Orchestra opened the Regional Arts series Friday afternoon with the first of two all-Russian programs at the Kravis Center. And in his return to South Florida, Yuri Temirkanov, the Russians' music director of 16 years, again proved to be one of the most inspiring and eloquent conductors in the field.

Friday's program featured renowned American cellist Lynn Harrell in Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat, sandwiched between two orchestral standards: Prokofiev's Symphony No. 1 ("Classical") and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 ("Pathetique"). But little was standard about the program's performances or the two encores.

Harrell comes closest to highlighting the cello's human vocal quality. He even phrases the melodies as if imitating a singer's breath patterns. And like a vocalist, he changes timbre and color to best express the music's sentiments.

He engaged the music - and the listener - so intensely that the Shostakovich emerged as more of a play about the drama and constancy of human striving than an instance of simply gorgeous, incisive playing.

Whether Harrell's soliloquies waxed soulful and sorrowful, distraught or defiant, restive or reflective, Temirkanov backed him up with brilliant effects and beautifully finished lines. The combination was electric, building one of the best conceptualizations of the work.

Harrell treated the enthusiastic audience to the first encore: a solo transcription of Chopin's Nocturne in E-flat, Op. 9, No. 2. With remarkable subtlety and freshness, he replicated the feathery filigree originally written for piano, but with a lightness of touch, yet depth of feeling, that few pianists achieve in the familiar slow waltz melody.

Temirkanov, with the same rhythmic drive that powered the Shostakovich, heightened the aerodynamics in Prokofiev's Classical and the urgency in Tchaikovsky's Pathetique. Although Tchaikovsky's off-beat "waltz" (second movement) drifted and sank into redundancy, the explosive first and exultant third movements let the celebrated Russian brass players reign triumphant.

French hornist Andrei Gloukhov, among other wind soloists, cradled the listener in the melancholy and yearning.

The Prokofiev, like the Shostakovich concerto, stuttered a bit when players weren't unanimous about the rhythms. But mostly, the Classical symphony was exuberance in flight and a rare model of a large orchestra playing delicately, cleanly and with far more clarity than it mustered in its 2002 Kravis concert. Mostly, the praise belongs to Temirkanov, so perceptive in his attention to fleeting nuances and details as well as the overall picture.

After the fifth curtain call, he led as an encore the type of music he definitely excels in: the emotive, expansive "Nimrod" from Elgar's Enigma Variations. Conducting as usual without a baton, he molded, stroked and caressed the sound with his hands for a transcendent, powerful musical experience.