Columbus Symphony Orchestra
Carolyn Kuan, conductor
Vijay Venkatesh, piano
Ohio Theatre
Columbus, OH
March 26, 2022

James Lee III: Towards a Greater Light
Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 22
 Encore:
 Schubert-Liszt: Ständchen, S560/7
Schubert: Symphony No. 9 in C major, D944

Currently music director of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, conductor Carolyn Kuan made a welcome debut with the Columbus Symphony in the final performance for March. The program opened with the brief 2017 work Towards a Greater Light by American composer James Lee III, meant to mark the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. Scored for strings alone, matters were often in a meditative stasis, saying much in its five-minute duration.

The young soloist Vijay Venkatesh was brought forth for Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 2. The commanding, improvisatory-like opening for the soloist alone pointed towards the passionate primary theme. Venkatesh displayed a formidable technique, from delicate filigree to fiery double octaves. The central Allegro scherzando was gossamer – and rather Mendelssohnian – in texture. Though an impressive finish, it felt clarity was sacrificed for speed in the breakneck finale. Venkatesh returned for an encore in the Schubert-Liszt Ständchen transcription, showing a haunting, lyrical side of the pianist not revealed in the ebullient concerto.

An apt choice of encore given that the rest of the evening was devoted to Schubert in the towering Ninth Symphony. Kuan allowed for the solo horn call which opened to be played freely, though it perhaps could have benefitted from her conducting to initiate things with more focused direction. Matters gradually amassed, leading the grandiose movement proper. The trombones were especially striking, forming the spine of the work, and the busy orchestra harmoniously blended together. A limber oboe passage in the Andante con moto was a quintessentially Schubertian melody, and gorgeous strings were a turn inwards in a work that otherwise shows the composer at his most exuberant. The third movement’s vigor spoke to an affinity with dance, though never without a certain Viennese charm and grace, and the high-spirited energy was sustained through the vivacious finale. A strong showing from Kuan – let’s hope she’s invited back to the CSO podium soon.