Photo Credit: Yaniv Dinur
Yaniv Dinur, resident conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (MSO), not only conducted on Sunday afternoon at Uihlein Hall, he was also an able soloist in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466.
This is one of the most soulful of concertos. Dinur’s clean, unfussy playing had a consistently even and effortless tone, easily resonating through the hall in soft playing. His cadenza in the first movement was far more a thoughtful contemplation than virtuoso exhibition. The performance felt unhurried and earnest; nothing about it seemed the least bit forced. Dinur’s palpable rapport with the musicians surely comes from conducting more than 50 MSO concerts each season.
The concerto was a well-chosen prelude to Mozart’s Requiem in D minor, K. 626, the last music the great composer wrote and left unfinished at his death at the young age of 35. It was completed by Mozart’s student, Franz Süssmayr. It was surprising to see in the program that the MSO had not performed the Requiem, a mainstay in the repertory around the world, since 2006. The restraint and taste Dinur displayed in the concerto continued in the Requiem. I’ve heard performances with more heat, but I don’t recall any that were as transparent as this one. Dinur successfully stressed the long line of each of the movements and conjured a sense of reverence appropriate to a requiem mass.
There were plenty of refined details in the performance of the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus, with carefully matched vowels and colorful consonants (the boldly rolled R in “Rex tremendae” was delicious). The choral blend showed that this ensemble is heading in a good, new direction under director Cheryl Frazes Hill. If the tenors had a more robust sound, it would have evened things out in the balance of the parts.
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The admirable soloists were soprano Mary Wilson, mezzo-soprano Clara Osowski, tenor Evan LeRoy Johnson and bass Peixin Chen. Osowski was able to create ample, lush sound in music that lies entirely in a middle-voice range. Chen gave booming authority to “Tuba mirum.” Johnson has the exciting sound of a rising young tenor.
