Olga Kern Returns to OC with a Winning Tchaikovsky
/By Truman C. Wang
1/19/2022
Last Friday night, January 14, the London-based Royal Philharmonic Orchestra played in Costa Mesa, during their multi-city U.S. tour, in an English-Russian program conducted by Vasily Petrenko. Mr. Petrenko holds conducting posts in the UK and Russia and is a dynamic, youthful presence on the podium.
The concert began with Four Sea Interludes from Britten’s opera Peter Grimes. A work of highly descriptive nature that also serves to portray the deteriorating mental state of the opera’s tormented protagonist. It was brilliantly played, in a fine account of Britten’s highly evocative and atmospheric score.
Pianist Olga Kern, 2001 Van Cliburn gold medalist and Orange County’s perennial favorite, returned on this occasion to give a towering performance of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1. One cannot say enough good things about Ms. Kern’s playing, in which clarity of line is in no way clouded by passionate expression and outbursts. The first movement Allegro showed just this fine balance of lyricism and power (the RPO’s brasses and flute also impressed!) The dreamy folksong of the Andante reached a feverish climax, accentuated by Ms. Kern’s powerful left hand, anticipating the fiery Cossack dance of the final Allegro. The RPO proved an ideal partner for Ms. Kern, rarely going above mezza-forte during their passages together.
Ms. Kern offered two Russian encores – a music box piece and the Flight of Bumblebee.
Rachmaninoff’s late work, the Symphonic Dances, received a blazing account from conductor Petrenko, not the least of which was the death-defying dies ire brass choire in the finale. It was followed by an English encore, Elgar’s Salut d’Amore, played con moltissimo amore by the fine RPO musicians and especially the horn.
Truman C. Wang is Editor-in-Chief of Classical Voice, whose articles have appeared in the Pasadena Star-News, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, other Southern California publications, as well as the Hawaiian Chinese Daily. He studied Integrative Biology and Music at U.C. Berkeley.