There was a sense of emotional and musical desperation about Stephen Kovacevich's performance of Mozart's C minor Piano Concerto with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Jiri Belohlavek. His whole interpretation careered towards the tragic conclusion of the finale, and he forced the orchestra to play at his fast speeds, creating a precipitous partnership with his conductor. Belohlavek began the outer movements at conventional and comfortable tempos, but then Kovacevich whipped the music into a frenzy. The effect was disturbing and thrilling - especially in the finale, as the LPO's woodwind players furiously tried to hang on to the soloist's dizzying energy.
Yet this was far from a one-dimensional performance. In the first movement, Kovacevich relished the rare moments of repose, holding back individual phrases as if trying to escape the music's inexorable minor-key trajectory. His cadenza thrust the piece into the soundworld of early Beethoven, full of dense figuration and impulsive virtuosity. But there was nothing gratuitous about any of his additions, whether in his delicate ornamentation in the slow movement or his elaborations of passages in the finale. Where many pianists use the grand scale of this concerto as an excuse for rhetorical self-indulgence, the energy of Kovacevich's performance had a focused intensity.
There was more drama in the final bars of the concerto than anywhere in Belohlavek's performance of Mahler's Fifth Symphony. It is a paradox that this emotional journey from death to life, from the funeral march of the first movement to the joyous finale, is one of Mahler's most technically involved scores. The music's victory over death is expressed in an explosion of counterpoint in the last movement.
However, Belohlavek's instincts tended towards the lyrical side of the symphony, and he gave the huge central Scherzo a rustic swagger. His approach should have made for an impressive account of the famous Adagietto, but he did not galvanise the LPO's string section, and the effect was melancholic rather than transcendent.
In the outer movements, Mahler's dense weave of polyphony was clouded and confused - a lack of musical clarity that was also a loss of dramatic direction. If the end of the performance was an overwhelming noise, it did not clinch the emotional argument of the piece.
