It was an all Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky program at Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra last weekend. By nature, it drew a substantial audience. While two perennial favorites were heard, the overall concert didn’t really work. I think many people could have built a better program of music by this composer.
Pianist Joyce Yang, who has played with MSO regularly for several seasons, was in her element in the famous Concerto No. 1. This was some of the best playing I’ve heard from Yang: boldness tempered with taste, nuance and subtlety. She showed insight in choosing to play a brilliant encore by Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera, as this year is the 100th anniversary of his birth.
Opening with the Polonaise from the opera Eugene Onegin was a defendable choice. But Tchaikovsy’s Symphony No. 1, played after intermission, drained the life out of the concert. The horns were splendid, the strings sounded lush and lovely, and an oboe solo by Kevin Pearl was a nice feature. The performance wasn’t the problem; it’s the composition. It just doesn’t add up to much, and it goes on and on. It’s interesting at best in showing a great composer in development. But the 45 minutes of this symphony felt like days of tedious boredom. Why program this when there are so many other choices by this composer?
The audience was rescued with the 1812 Overture as a finale, and I’m sure everyone there was grateful for it after that dull, long symphony. Guest conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto was competent on the podium throughout. The orchestra played at its usual high standard. However, I found his music making to err on the safe side, and felt no strong artistic point of view coming across.
Stay on top of the news of the day
Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays.
One pops concert remains in this MSO season. Next season will be Edo de Waart’s last, the end of an impressive, game-changing artistic era for MSO. And the future? No leading candidate for the next music director seems to have emerged at this point. Whoever it turns out to be, he or she must deserve to take the reins of this great orchestra.
