Review: Simon Trpceski Plays Grieg

Monday, 30 July 2018, 12:39 pm
Opinion: Max Rashbrooke

Simon Trpceski Plays Grieg
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Friday, 13 July
Reviewer: Max Rashbrooke

The star of this show was Macedonian pianist Simon Trpceski, sandwiched in between two pieces of Shostakovich. The first, the Festive Overture, was a cheerfully exuberant bit of work (though still touched with irony), and played with a lovely sense of legato. Conductor Jaime Martin was a powerful force, at one point employing gestures that can only be described as looking like he was throwing clods of earth over his shoulders.

The second bit of Shostakovich was rather larger – the 10th Symphony, to be precise. And it was wonderfully played, right from a delightfully eerie and tense opening. In fact the first movement was decorated with nice touches throughout, from a restrained clarinet solo to some menacing contra bassoon and bassoon duets.

The second movement was a whirl of terrifying energy, while in the third and fourth the woodwinds were again to the fore; a captivating oboe solo, hovering just in the right space between lyricism and shrillness, demanded to be noticed. Martin’s astute conducting held it all together, making sense of a piece in which sadness frequently gives way to almost frenzied shrieks.

I was less enamoured, though, of our Macedonian guest. He certainly was a virtuoso: no criticism could be admitted of this technique, right throughout the very demanding passages of the Grieg piano concerto. But there was nothing magical or seductive about his touch, in a piece that so often requires just that.

Often it was left to the orchestra to supply those qualities – a gentle and lyrical cello line in the opening, and a deep, rich sound from all the strings in the opening of the second, conjuring up images of lines of rain and darker tones.

In the third movement, I thought Trpceski’s playing became more subtle, and he got his touch just right in the blend between staccato and legato. Especially in the tougher passages he conjured up a crunchy, driving sound that perfectly suited the mood, and his musical connection with the orchestra seemed a profound one. We even got a rather lovely encore, a duet (more Grieg) between Trpceski and concertmaster Vesa-Matti Leppanen that had a hesitating, haunting quality. But it wasn’t quite enough to erase a sense of having been left slightly cold.

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Max Rashbrooke

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Max Rashbrooke is a journalist and author working in Wellington, New Zealand, where he writes about politics, finance and social issues.

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