Word: previn
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...calls for fewer than 20 performers, it requires them to sound like many more. This illusion succeeded best in the fanciful second movement, "Waltzes" and the "Elegy" that follows, a piece that itself could secure for its creator a reputation as one of America's greatest tonal composers. Previn and his temporarily reduced company made it not only a focused meditation on Lizzie's troubled character, but a monument to Gould himself, who died just last year...
Next came a sharp and jumpy cadenza in which the high notes were never less than pure. Previn had decided to make the last section sound like an alla breve version of the first, made jazzier by the inclusion of a piano part. By the time Hudgins finished negotiating all the difficult figures, he had earned himself three curtain calls...
...balance between strings and brass that was not always present in this performance. In the opening "Passacaglia and Fugue," to use the talk of the trade, the trumpets could have been shooting ducks out of the balcony. But this is only a quibble when one considers how carefully Previn articulated both crucial ingredients, the ground of the passacaglia and the subject of the fugue...
...best seat in the house for Gershwin's "Rhapsody In Blue" wasn't for sale: it would have to have been suspended directly above the piano. Since Previn was conducting and playing, he found it necessary to remove the lid of his $100,000 Bosendorfer Imperial, yet by removing it he ensured that all his glorious sound would travel straight up, not out into the audience...
Seats in the front rows of the orchestra were adequate for hearing what was going on, but balcony seats probably were not. This was a shame, because Previn played with exceeding cleverness and charm. In general, all the familiar themes were satisfying, and concertmaster Malcolm Lowe played a gorgeous solo in the lyrical section, but the great ascending chordfest near the end should have been much louder and less reserved...