April 10 & 12, 2025
Atlanta Symphony Hall, Woodruff Arts Center
Atlanta, Georgia – USA
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra; Nathalie Stutzmann, conductor; Anna Geniushene, piano.
Pyotr TCHAIKOVSKY: Piano Concerto No. 1
Maurice RAVEL: Le tombeau de Couperin
Maurice RAVEL: Pavane pour une infante défunte
Maurice RAVEL: La valse
Mark Gresham | 14 APR 2025
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra offered a vibrant but uneven evening of music Thursday night under the baton of music director Nathalie Stutzmann, pairing the lush Romanticism of Tchaikovsky with the refined and often elusive orchestral palette of Ravel. The program marked the ASO debut of Russian pianist Anna Geniushene, a 2022 Van Cliburn finalist, who took the spotlight in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor.
The famous opening bars in the orchestra showed true promise for this performance of Tchaikovsky’s concerto, bringing out the boldest qualities in both soloist and conductor—though it would prove to not always be in harmonious partnership. Geniushene approached the work with assertive, muscular energy, favoring hyper-expressive gestures and dramatic intensity over subtlety. Her performance showcased a powerful, sharply stenciled technique, with broad dynamic contrasts and emphatic articulation—particularly in the outer movements, where her phrasing and rhythmic liberties created a restless, attention-grabbing surface.
Yet, on close hearing, this performance revealed inconsistencies. In the second movement, Stutzmann pursued a somewhat blanketed character from the orchestra. At the same time, Geniushene continued to project forward wit pianistic weight, and even the more intimately played passages stood out against the curiously muted orchestral texture. Occasional differences in pace between pianist and conductor resulted in momentary temporal disjunctions. The finale brought another surge of vigor from Geniushene—dynamic and assertive in its relentlessness, which alone can be enough to please an audience looking for a primarily visceral experience.
Her encore, however, was a sparkling rendition of Shostakovich’s Waltz-Scherzo (often nicknamed the “Music Box Waltz”).
It became clear at intermission that the second half of the concert would be critical to the evening’s success, featuring music that Stutzmann ought to be able to lead well, but the results were disappointing.
It was devoted entirely to music by Maurice Ravel, beginning with Le tombeau de Couperin, a neoclassical suite originally written for solo piano. While Ravel’s orchestration calls for clarity and a nod to Baroque precision, Stutzmann’s reading leaned heavily toward legato phrasing and often vague textures that dulled the music’s intended character and elegance. The homage to Couperin and the French Baroque felt obscured by a lack of clarity and crisp definition, though warm woodwind solos provided moments of color and charm. The final “Rigaudon” came across the best of the four moments.
In Pavane pour une infante défunte, the performance was restrained, and the interpretation lacked a distinct emotional arc, remaining placid and unremarkable throughout—an elegy that neither drew emotive empathy nor fully captivated.
The evening concluded with La valse, Ravel’s haunting and increasingly frenzied deconstruction of the Viennese waltz. While Stutzmann brought intensity and drive to the climactic sections, the opening missed the sense of mystery Ravel envisioned, failing to evoke the misty swirl of dancers gradually emerging from shadows or, as it developed, nor did it capture the Viennese character that should be present, favoring flat spectacle over emerging grandeur that builds to an unhinged, almost cataclysmic conclusion that shatters the remnants of the waltz. Maurice Ravel’s La valse ends loudly and violently; alas, that visceral element is enough for some listeners. But the performance did not capture the essence of Ravel’s music in a way that The ASO has proven itself highly capable in the past.
Hopefully the situation improved when the program was repeated Saturday evening at Atlanta Symphony Hall.
A thoughtfully curated prelude to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s mainstage concert unfolded Thursday evening in a 6:45 p.m. chamber recital, highlighting stylistic diversity and strong ensemble playing in works by Eugène Ysaÿe, Jennifer Higdon, and Tōru Takemitsu.
The program opened with Ysaÿe’s Sonata for Two Violins in A Minor, performed by violinists Sissi Yuqing Zhang and Rachel Ostler, capturing the sonata’s conversational character.
Next came Jennifer Higdon’s Amazing Grace in its version for string quartet, offering a moment of meditative repose. Violinists Kevin Chen and Paolo Dara, violist Yiyin Li, and cellist Isabel Kwon gave an understated reading of Higdon’s arrangement, which layers variations of the American hymn tune in gently overlapping textures.
Closing the recital was Takemitsu’s Rain Tree, a 1981 composition for three percussionists inspired by a short story by Kenzaburō Ōe and dedicated to Olivier Messiaen. ASO principal percussionist Joseph Petrasek was joined by assistant principal Michael Jarrett and percussionist Mike Perdue in a poised and atmospheric performance, making for a contemplative contemporary close to the recital.
The performance, free to ticketholders of the main Thursday evening concert, showcased the ASO musicians’ continuing commitment to chamber music repertoire beyond their regular orchestral commitments. ■
EXTERNAL LINKS:
- Atlanta Symphony Orchestra: aso.org
- Anna Geniushene: annageniushene.com
Read more by Mark Gresham.
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