Washington Classical Review

Leif Ove Andsnes performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 with Gianandrea Noseda and the National Symphony Orchestra Thursday night. Photo: C. Downey / WCR

The last time Leif Ove Andsnes played with the National Symphony Orchestra was his debut in 2009. The Norwegian pianist has performed recitals and chamber music in the area since then, but he finally returned to the Kennedy Center Concert Hall Thursday night. The chance to hear him perform Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, with music director Gianandrea Noseda at the helm, proved something to be treasured.

From the signature opening keyboard flourishes, Andsnes etched every detail of this “Emperor” concerto with crystalline clarity. Limpid articulation did not impede the flow of the musical gestures, however, as Andsnes insisted on a crisp tempo at the end of that opening cadenza. Noseda pressed the NSO musicians to keep up in the orchestral exposition, after which Andsnes decorated the themes introspectively in the repeat with the keyboard.

Voicings revealed themselves with ease, from luscious trills to undulating chromatic runs in Andsnes’ left hand. Throughout, Noseda ideally balanced the NSO with their soloist, in the dreamier parts of the development and in the louder sections. The cascading arpeggio patterns in the closing section rang out with elegantly shaped distinction.

The slow movement, in the distant key of B major, opened with poignant playing from the muted strings. Andsnes answered this warm introduction with an equally delicate sound, trading lovely solos with the woodwinds. At the end, when the orchestra abruptly shifted their B-natural down to B-flat, Andsnes made a wistful transition to the finale, offering wisps of the theme as a hushed foretaste of what is to come.

Both orchestra and pianist strode through the concluding Rondo with heroic fortitude, even at a brisk tempo. The music never felt harried or rushed, just supremely confident, in both the flowing runs and the silken moments of softness. The little coda section, with Andsnes slowing down to the steady accompanying pulse of the soft timpani, brilliantly set up the concluding flourish.

After several ovations, Andsnes provided an afterglow with a cleverly selected encore: Chopin’s Prelude in A-flat Major (Op. 28, no. 17). The Steinway came alive under his fingertips with an orchestra-sized sound, especially in the coda, where some clever manipulation of the sustaining pedal gave the booming A-flat bass notes a bell-like ping under an otherwise hazily muted texture.

Noseda continued the NSO’s month-long tribute to Richard Strauss, begun last week with the Four Last Songs. This week it was the autobiographical tone poem Ein Heldenleben, last conducted by Mark Elder in 2018. Noseda, as usual, gave the piece a powerful lift of energy, supercharging the first section’s tempo. The massive brass section responded with heroic power.

The woodwinds made a fine impression in the second section, devoted to the carping music critics parodied by Strauss. The E-flat clarinet brayed with particular arrogance, against which the parallel fifths of the bass and tenor tuba sounded more polite. Strauss intended the latter motif to sound like the words “Doktor Döhring,” referring to a disapproving Munich critic. According to scholar Michael Kennedy, Döhring took this mockery in good humor, even noting happily that Strauss did not include him with the garrulous woodwinds “but treated it more like an old grizzly bear.”

Concertmaster Nurit Bar-Josef excelled in the extended violin solo, communicating both the consolation and chiding of Strauss’s devoted wife and muse, a soprano. After a gorgeous love scene, memories of Doktor Döhring and the critics returned, kept slow and soft by Noseda. Crisply marshaled offstage trumpets began the battle scene, pitting the themes of the music critics, now backed by sinister percussion, against the themes of the composer and his wife. This played best to Noseda’s strengths, and the orchestra responded with ferocity.

Even in the closing sections, as the musical hero turned to thoughts of peace, the sounds of the critics followed him, as if absorbed into his subconscious, while Strauss ran through over thirty self-quotations from his earlier works. The most recognizable theme, the rising trumpet melody from Also sprach Zarathustra, comes amid the gorgeous closing section, reflecting the hero’s withdrawal from the world, sublimely played in this performance. Fortunately, Strauss did not retire after Ein Heldenleben but moved on to opera, which the NSO turns to next week.

The program will be repeated 11:30 a.m. Friday and 3 p.m. Sunday. kennedy-center.org