Washington Classical Review

Pianist Garrick Ohlsson performed with the National Symphony Orchestra and conductor Louis Langrée Thursday night in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. Photo: C. Downey/WCR

Orchestral programming often falls into predictable patterns because sometimes, they just work. Thursday evening’s National Symphony Orchestra concert, led by guest conductor Louis Langrée, hewed to one such familiar sequence: overture, concerto, symphony. Langrée, who last appeared at the podium of the Kennedy Center Concert Hall in 2022, brought his accustomed gentility and enthusiasm to the affair.

French music bookended the program, beginning with the Overture No. 1 by Louise Farrenc, a gifted but largely forgotten composer from the 19th century. NSO music director Gianandrea Noseda conducted her excellent Third Symphony, from 1847, during the Covid virtual concert era.

While that piece, composed after Farrenc joined the faculty of the Conservatoire de Paris, is a lost masterpiece, this overture from a decade earlier sounded less accomplished. With impassioned gestures, Langrée helped the musicians shape the piece in a way that showed its graceful melodies and transparent orchestration in the best light. 

Garrick Ohlsson took the stage as soloist in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1. In his recent visits with the NSO, the American pianist has played imposing 20th-century concertos: Busoni in 2014 and Barber in 2017. Ohlsson, now 77, turned to his more quiet side for a gentle, introspective reading of this youthful concerto from the classical era.

Langrée set the mood in the orchestral introduction to the first movement, with supple phrasing and well-articulated rhythmic motifs. Ohlsson brought out the intimate characteristics of the piano writing, playing the many runs with distinct clarity in his still-agile fingers. In the development, where the keyboard mostly accompanies important lines in the orchestra, Ohlsson tended to move ahead, rather than yielding to what was happening around him.

For the cadenza near the end of the first movement, Ohlsson played the last of the three options Beethoven notated. Ohlsson, the first American pianist to win the Chopin Competition, in 1970, gave this lengthy solo all its virtuosic edge, rolling through the many diminished seventh chords with dramatic flair and ending with florid trills.

Ohlsson’s lyrical touch in the slow movement proved a highlight, especially in the tender duets with principal clarinetist Lin Ma. A bright, good-humored tempo enlivened the Finale, crisply coordinated by Langrée between orchestra and soloist. Each return of the main rondo theme, both in piano and ensemble, had a different character, all memorably placed and polished.

For an encore, the choice of Chopin seemed inevitable, as Ohlsson has just returned from serving as the first non-Polish judge of the Chopin Competition this year, won by another American pianist, Eric Lu. Ohlsson gave masterfully subtle bel canto delicacy to the right-hand extravagance of the Nocturne in F-sharp Major, Op. 15, no. 2, sending the listener off to intermission on a cloud.

Louis Langrée led the NSO in Saint-Saëns’ Third Symphony, with organist Marvin Mills at the Rubinstein Family Organ in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. Photo: C. Downey/WCR

Langrée switched gears for the final work, drawing out all the romantic longing and grandeur of the Third Symphony of Saint-Saëns, the famous “Organ Symphony.” The NSO inaugurated the new Rubinstein Family Organ, built in the Concert Hall by Casavant Frères, with this piece back in 2012. Organist Marvin Mills took his seat at the console, placed stage right of the orchestra, to elicit the instrument’s alternately soft and imposing sound with authority.

Poignant flute and oboe solos melded with luscious strings in the initial section of the first movement, which is then fused with a slow section featuring the organ’s first entrance. Saint-Saëns used the organ so effectively as an orchestral color, mixing it with strings and woodwinds in intriguing ways, all brought out with maximum ardor by Langrée.

The conductor’s enthusiasm and slightly mushy beat caused trouble only once, in the Scherzo section of the second movement, as the coordination with the ornate piano part, at that point requiring two players simultaneously, became momentarily confused. The grand registration of the organ, not overwhelming the orchestra even at full volume, provided a counterweight to the otherwise airy textures. Langrée expertly paced the final accelerando section to cap a mighty climax.

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As reported last month, the NSO now plays the national anthem at the start of every concert, although they have done so mostly sans conductor. Richard Grenell, appointed president of the Kennedy Center last February, added a new wrinkle by conducting the Star-Spangled Banner himself at last Saturday’s NSO Pops concert. The NSO has subsequently offered donors the chance to lead the NSO in the national anthem, but no one took them up on it tonight.

The program will be repeated 11:30 a.m. Friday and 8 p.m. Saturday. kennedy-center.org