With the excitement and controversy surrounding Klaus Mäkela concerning his recent Chicago Symphony appointment highlighting the challenge faced by the LA Phil brass of having to hire a permanent CEO before they can reasonably get a commitment from the available pool – and perhaps vice versa – Karina Canellakis came along at just the right moment to see what a possible contender for the post could bring. It wasn't the greatest test: Mozart's most Olympian piano concerto puts all the onus on the soloist, and Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra is one of the Phil's signature showpieces (their great recording for Telarc in 1988 was one of the highlights of the years under André Previn).
After putting a reduced-strings orchestra through their paces in an athletic, even exhilarating performance of Beethoven's overture to The Creatures of Prometheus, Canellakis brought a personal note of urgency that was more than ceremonial to the opening tutti of Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 25 in C major; she had the same reduced-size band sailing smoothly through all the key pivot points, adorned with clear, liquid woodwinds and an irresistible lilt to the tutti just prior to the pianist's first entrance, where Inon Barnatan opened vulnerably, a little rushed, before spinning out skeins of silky sound within the framework of Canellakis' precise timing. Later on he injected a nice sense of anticipatory drama into the build-up back to the recap which they reached together at quite a dizzy pace. His first movement cadenza was “a mix, part Barnatan, part Mitsuko Uchida, part Eugene Istomin,” according to the Philharmonic's new director of public relations. It began with a lively, but short-lived fugue, and after that settled for comforting dazzle and sheen.
Conductor and soloist took the Andante at a smooth, leisurely pace, and the Allegretto was uneventful until Barnatan began hopping around cutely in the closing sequences which raised an enthusiastic standing ovation, leading to an encore which was about the same as length as the last movement, Mendelssohn's Rondo capriccioso.
The Bartók began mysteriously enough, although a true pianissimo seemed to elude the now full-sized Philharmonic and the crescendos were not so big as they might have been, but Canellakis punctuated decisively. The Giuoco delle coppie had a lazy seductive charm, the Elegia was everything an enchanted Bartók night should be, with impressive big string perorations, the Intermezzo could have had a more boisterous sense of humor, and the final commotion in the Finale just sort of happened.
