Olga Kern @ Dallas Symphony Orchestra

—Review by Wayne Lee Gay

In an era blessed with numerous talented interpreters of the music of Rachmaninoff, one performer stands supreme: Olga Kern, who appears with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra this week in performances of that composer’s ever-popular Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini under the baton of DSO principal guest conductor Gemma New.

Kern, who earned her spot on the international stage as co-gold medalist of the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, completely owns the considerable technical and intellectual challenges Rachmaninoff throws at the performer. And she comes by it honestly, as a product of the stringent Russian piano tradition, which she personifies more than any pianist of our time. But there’s an icing on the cake as well, that wins the hearts—and the attention—of audiences who experience her live performances. Between her appearance as an enthusiastic (and brunette) teenager at the 1997 Cliburn and her sweeping triumph at the 2001 competition, Kern developed a persona that combines glamour and confidence with an obviously sincere intent to pour herself into the music. Kern clearly gives her devotion, her all, to the music—and her love for the audience is palpable.

This was evident from the moment she swept onstage, gowned to fit a queen, and entered the trance that makes a Kern performance an act of magic. In Kern’s able hands, the opening passages of Rachmaninoff’s rhapsody (actually a superbly crafted set of variations) establish technical command of sparkling scales and ferocious chords; but, for Kern, the most powerful moments come in the quiet spots, wherein she holds the audience breathless for a single note that captures the soul of romanticism. By the time her beautifully paced collaboration with conductor New reaches the militaristic fourteenth variation, the audience is hearing not just a catalog of pianistic possibilities, but an epic adventure across a broad musical landscape.

The arching lyricism of the eighteenth variation is, of course, the heart of the work, delivered here with a molto rubato that only a pianist of Kern’s stature could carry off. From there, it’s a thrilling roller coaster ride to that almost humorously delicate final note.

Thursday night’s cheering audience demanded two encores, including a sparkling rendition of Rachmaninoff’s Polichinelle, written by the young Rachmaninoff half a century before the exiled composer created his rhapsody.

Even though it’s 2022 and we shouldn’t have to make note of the fact, the concert featured a female soloist, a female conductor, and an opening work by a female composer. That feminine trifecta would have been a bit of a rarity and special occasion fifty years ago, and unheard of in 1922—in Dallas or anywhere else.

The opening work of the program, Puerto Rican-born Angélica Negrón’s What Keeps Me Awake, a seven-minute-long essay, features the rich array of symphonic sounds (almost sound effects) and intuitive structure typical of much American orchestral music of the twenty-first century. Negrón’s prolific output includes a good number of similarly whimsical titles (e.g.,  Fruity Roll On Sparkly Lip Gloss, bubblegum grass/peppermint field, Four Ways to Eat Cereal, to name only a few), and I’ll admit to being a little wary of a title so obviously self-focused as this one. Once immersed in the music in live performance, however, the listener can feel that universal experience of half-sleep, with drifting, unpredictable thoughts and experiences passing by. The effect is pleasantly hypnotic and somewhat profound.

After the Rachmaninoff and intermission, the concert closes with another surefire crowd-pleaser, Holst’s The Planets. As in the Rachmaninoff, conductor New tends to turn the orchestral volume up a bit high, hitting full and almost deafening loudness in the first movement, “Mars, the Bringer of War.” Otherwise, this magnificent set proceeded nicely (in spite of applause from the audience between all seven movements). The strings were in terrific shape, though the winds and brass had a few (and slight) early-in-the-season rough entries. Other than her occasionally misjudged volume levels, New owns a superb insight into this monumental cycle; she even revealed some of the delicate hints of English folk music tucked into the score. (As a New Zealander, New may have a bit of the English countryside in her DNA.)

Though this listener would just as soon dispense with onstage comments from the conductor except in rare circumstances, the practice has apparently become ubiquitous. To her credit, instead of the rambling and underprepared comments we hear all too often, New delivered a succinct, well-rehearsed invitation to the audience to sit up and listen.

When: September 16 and 17

Where: Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center

Web: www.dallassymphony.org