Before Saturday night, few folks in town knew much about pianist Yuliya Gorenman. After her appearance with the Savannah Symphony Orchestra, she has a host of new fans.
The Russian-born Gorenman performed Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini'' with the SSO, led by Philip Greenberg. Since its premiere in 1934, the piece, if not among the world's most profound works, has proved enduringly popular with audiences. Bouncing off a theme found in Paganini's Caprice No. 24, Rachmaninoff's variations range from the delicate to the sinister, the thunderous to the frankly sentimental. You hear in the music everything from the dark hues of the Dies irae in the Gregorian Mass of the Dead-a melody the composer particularly admired-to suggestions of Broadway schmaltz.
The piece, exploring such a broad range of pianistic and orchestral textures, asks a lot of the soloist. Gorenman patently has the talent to meet, even transcend the work's challenges. Her rendition of the "Rhapsody,'' in its more electric moments, was bold and impassioned; her touch in its more delicate passages was sensitive and lyrical. Her playing in the final variations particularly built an irresistible momentum that turned the familiar music into something fresh and exciting. An extroverted and warmly expressive performer, Gorenman won the audience's clamorous approval; after a deafening ovation, she played a couple of well-received encores.
If the "Rhapsody'' is fairly recognizable, the program's second half was devoted to one of classical music's equivalents to the faces on Mount Rushmore. Beethoven's Sixth Symphony, the "Pastorale,'' has popped up everywhere from car commercials to "Fantasia.'' Introducing a new sort of musical pictorialism when it premiered in 1808, the symphony, a happy series of meditations on visiting the country, was enormously influential to a long line of 19th century composers.
Despite the symphony's familiarity, Greenberg and company delivered a fresh and spacious performance, nicely capturing the piece's exuberance without flying into overdrive. In the opening movement, the SSO deftly avoided the chirpiness that in some performances turns the music into nothing more than a silly little walk in the country; the other movements also flowed nicely, with a particularly robust rendering of the "Thunderstorm'' that briefly darkens the symphony's sunlit day. The conductor's emotional involvement with the music was palpable; the orchestra's performance was vivid and expansive.
Soprano Susanne Bernhard guests at the next Masterworks concert on November 17. Tickets and more information are available at the SSO's box office at 236-9536 or, from outside Savannah, 1-800-537-7894.
