Washington Classical Review

Daniil Trifonov performed Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1 with Gianandrea Noseda and the National Symphony Orchestra Thursday night. Photo: C. Downey/WCR

The departure of Washington National Opera caused another turbulent week at the Kennedy Center. Nevertheless, a full house greeted the return of Daniil Trifonov to the Concert Hall stage Thursday night, for his first appearance with the National Symphony Orchestra since 2023. Music director Gianandrea Noseda took the podium for the first NSO concerts of 2026, entering after the obligatory rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner.

Noseda supercharged the orchestral introduction to the first movement, with forceful bass drones and electric trills. Trifonov added a brooding intensity at the initial piano entrance, bringing enough sound on that enigmatic opening theme to match the orchestra’s power. The tender second theme, in the relative major and slightly faster, smoldered in Trifonov’s hands, through his lavish variation of rubato.

Trifonov thundered on the passages in octaves in the development section, setting up another exchange where the pianist equalled the orchestra in volume. Many of the principal musicians sat out the first half, with generally good results in the woodwinds and strings. The horns sometimes sounded anemic on their important solos, and there were some off notes in the trumpets.

The second movement proved the lush highlight of the concerto, with Noseda encouraging a luxurious pacing of the Adagio tempo. Even more than the orchestral passages, Trifonov’s attention to legato shaping brought out every gorgeous, longing harmonic twist of this exquisite music. The vital edge of Trifonov’s attacks at the start of the boisterous third movement sliced through the soft haze that came before it. Once again, the pianist challenged the orchestra with sheer force as few others can do.

After this serious, weighty, but impeccably clear tour de force, Trifonov turned to something utterly unexpected for his encore. Osvaldo Golijov’s Levante is a piano fantasy arranged in collaboration with pianist Octavio Brunetti, based on the chorus “El cordero Pascual” from the composer’s St. Mark Passion. The work’s Latin dance rhythms, dispatched with the technical efficiency of a Prokofiev toccata, added a much-needed note of carefree joy to the evening.

On the second half, Noseda conducted the complete score of Stravinsky’s music for the ballet The Rite of Spring. The orchestra was so vast, now with all the principal musicians back in their accustomed seats, that the stage had to be extended forward, covering some of the rows of seats at the front of the hall.

Noseda went for maximum savagery in this ground-breaking score. First he showed off the woodwind section in the Introduction to Part I, with principal bassoonist Sue Heineman’s lovely high range leading a chorus of sounds awakened by the first warmth of spring. With most fast sections, including the famous “Augurs of Spring,” Noseda preferred driving tempos, making for a thrilling ride, if sometimes at the cost of optimal clarity and balance.

More satisfying moments came in less fraught passages, such as the slowly pulsing “Spring Rounds,” with lush bass sounds and an expertly paced crescendo to a full mayhem of amassed brass. The end of Part I, from the “Procession of the Sage” to the ecstatic “Dance of the Earth,” rocked the hall with ear-crushing volume.

The opening sections of Part II were especially subtle, with a careful control of balances and special effects to create a vivid sense of coloration. A deliberate tempo heightened the tension of the “Ritual Action of the Ancestors,” with imperious lines from the horns and other brass. The air of menace continued through the concluding “Danse sacrale,” with its violent shifts of meter and jagged melodic shapes. Even without the dancers, this performance offered vivid tableaux in sound.

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