JSO review

Review: Pianist, JSO capture Mozart's subtleties

By Terry Pow
For the Jackson Citizen Patriot
Monday, February 9, 2004 - page A-7

Denmark's celebrated piano virtuoso Katrine Gislinge clearly believes in establishing a close rapport with the orchestra.

At moments she appeared to be conducting along with maestro Stephen Osmond during Saturday night's Jackson Symphony Orchestra concert. Or maybe the expressive gestures were her way of channeling into the astral presence of Mozart, whose "Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major" lay beneath her agile fingers.

Either way, it turned out to be as refined a performance of a masterpiece as one might hope to hear on a cold winter's night.

Mozart wrote this work in a year of astonishing productivity that included two other piano concertos and "The Marriage of Figaro." The A major concerto side steps the overt brilliance of the other pieces and invites the listener into a more private world, at once tender and confiding.

Gislinge embraced the tenderness without becoming sugary. She coaxed the work's shy mysteries to the surface with a gem-like technique and limpid tone.

The orchestra responded gracefully, and seized the opportunity to strut its stuff in the second half with a performance of Beethoven's "Symphony No. 8 in F major."

This bubbling work represents Beethoven unbuttoned and pranksterish, It's almost as if he's saying to the world, "I know the blockbuster ninth symphony is just around the corner, but first I'm going to have some fun."

And fun the JSO had in the most musical way. Osmond's crisp tempi carried the performance through from beginning to end with a spring in its step, and with all of the orchestra's sections responding joyfully.

The JSO launched the evening with a similarly lithe performance of the "Overture to Die Fledermaus" by Johann Strauss Jr. A Viennese coffee and a Danish. Who could ask for more?