The TPO Overwhelms Again

Conductor Gudni A Emilsson (photo left) and duo pianists Schiavo & Marchegiani

Mahidol University College of Music Auditorium. Nakonpathom, Thailand. March 9, 2013. I'm not a big fan of works for two pianos. After all, who needs to be reminded that the piano is a percussion instrument. But, given two sensitive players who perform a lot together and who understand the risks involved, two pianos can be a beautiful combination, especially if you add Mozart into the equation. The Italian piano duo of Schiavo and Marchegiani, are artists who seek to bring out the beauty of the composition, in this case, Mozart's very familiar Concerto No.10 for Two Pianos, and supported by the quiet playing of the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra, they achieved a beautiful balance with the orchestra and between the two pianos themselves. 

I've become a big fan of the TPO, especially when conducted by its chief conductor, Gudni A. Emilsson, who deserves much of the credit for developing this orchestra into not only the finest in Thailand, but certainly among the very best of this region. With membership in the orchestra changing as students come and go, and the faculty changing as well, this is no easy task. The TPO can play anything, but it excels in the big works, where heft is a good quality to have, and the adventure of youth is able to be exercised. Shostakovich's Symphony No. 11 (The Year 1905), is programmatic and, as one commentator quipped, it is a movie score without a movie. It is powerful music and Emilsson shaped it with meticulous attention to detail, while letting his musicians have full rein in those passages that distinguish the modern symphony orchestra from its classical antecedents. I was exhausted after the hour length of the symphony, and the emotional roller coaster that the score exploits. If I had closed my eyes, I could easily have been at Carnegie Hall, with Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic.