Saturday, June 7, 2025
Orchestra Hall, Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Music Center, Woodward Avenue, Detroit, Michigan
Amplify is a DSO co-commission and embraces pretty figuration and a developing militaristic thrust with allusions to the 1812 Overture (seriously!), ending with bass-drum cannon-shots and some bells (copyright Tchaikovsky). At least this mostly repetitive, pointless note-spinning lasts only ten minutes. The B-minor Symphony by Leokadiya Kashperova (1872-1940) – pianist, composer, and Stravinsky’s piano teacher – is pleasant-enough if direction-less, mostly lyrical, sort of in the Borodin/Liadov mould; nineteenth-century Russian-ness anyway. Nicely performed here (lovely cello and violin solos in the first movement) with dexterity in the fairy-light Scherzo and some gravitas in the soulful if overlong slow movement, the whole (an insubstantial Finale yet with a grandiose coda) leaves little impression, however sincere the composer and however dedicated this rendition. In between, Behzod Abduraimov gave a ‘first among equals’ account of a particularly popular Piano Concerto, his music-serving virtuosity in place throughout, notably leggiero at times, and not just during the second movement’s mid-point, with the Finale a triumph, as much for the DSO and its conductor – faithful accompanists from the beginning – as for the pianist, Abduraimov adding a stylish ‘La campanella’ (further bells!), one of Liszt’s Grandes études de Paganini. This concert ended the DSO’s 24-25 season.