Back up to the City for the most basic red-meat program possible, the two largest-scale concert works of Beethoven's "heroic" period: the "Emperor" Concerto and the "Eroica" Symphony. Still, these works are some of the greatest music ever written and they deserve to be played, just not perhaps too often. It'd been a while since I'd heard either.
EPS conducted and Igor Levit was the pianist. I liked the crisp clarity of Levit's playing, and especially the quiet subterranean way he navigated the concerto's transition from the Adagio to the finale. For an encore, he played a little Shostakovich waltz.
The "Eroica" was a dramatic, energetic performance that kept the music continually exciting.
Again, not an earth-shattering performance but a good one, and much more in keeping with SFS's traditional strengths than the last such concert.
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