The MetLife Foundation in combination with The National Endowment for the Arts presented “The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra” featuring Jean-Yves Thibaudet on piano and Louis Hanzlik on trumpet at Carnegie Hall on Saturday, February 11, 2012. Seated on the highest balcony level, I was awed by the beauty of the Isaac Stern Auditorium. I was able to make detailed observations on the orchestral design of the building, noting how they would affect how the performance is received. The pieces for the night focused primarily on sonatas and concertos, with one piece by Honegger, which served as the exception. These pieces from Tippet, Shostakovich, and Tchaikovsky featured light elements of dance, which made the night a joyful and pleasant listening experience. The composer of focus will be Shostakovich. In discussing this piece, I will discuss the execution of his Piano Concerto No. 1 in C minor, Op. 35 in comparison to the prerecorded version and the influence that featured artists Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Louis Hanzlik had on the overall performance of their movement.

The day before this concert, I attended another concert concert at Carnegie Hall where I made note of many execution mistakes in the live performance of the pieces. With this in mind at this concert, I am unintentionally looking for slight mishaps only to find that their execution was just as clean and precise as the recording. As I listened to this concerto prior to attending this concert, I took note of the neat and clean execution of each movement; I realized that every note was in place and every hit was properly accented. During the concert, I did not make note of any mistakes in dynamics or any timing issues. After I realized their clean execution, I was caught in the beauty of the piece disregarding all aesthetic issues. The ambiance that a live performance would give is vastly different from a recording. Therefore, the impact of each strong accent in comparison to soft peaceful feeling of a melody was experienced regardless of one’s seat in the hall- especially considering that I was seated furthest from the stage.

Pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet and trumpeter Louis Hanzlik were the featured artists of the night. As an element of concertos, one individual or small group would play in contrast to a larger group. For the third movement in Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in C minor, Op. 35, Thibaudet played the piano as the soloist while the rest of the orchestra performed as the larger group. For the fourth, Hanzlik was featured as the soloist. For the third movement, the pianist began by playing with the entire orchestra. When it was time for her to play separately, the pianist played with a great fervor that accented the contrast. The intensity of her sound was great where she became the focus of the piece even when the orchestra returned enhancing the song. For the fourth movement, the trumpet did not play throughout the piece. There were specific moments from the beginning where I was looking for the trumpet to come in. Nevertheless, when the trumpet came in, we immediately knew that this was the undeniably the trumpeter. In comparing these two soloists, the presence of the pianist was strongly noted throughout the piece while the trumpeter was recognized at few places in the song.

Overall, “The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra” featuring Jean-Yves Thibaudet on piano and Louis Hanzlik on trumpet was a great experience. The cleanness of the execution in combination with the great soloists allowed for an enjoyable listening experience.