Mälkki, as well, showed impressive mastery of this undoubtedly difficult score, directing with precision and nuance while navigating complex rhythms and sudden contrasts of mood, dynamic, texture, and color.
“The Boston Symphony’s Walter Piston Society Concert on Friday featured three very different works—one a world premiere—under the dynamic direction of acclaimed Finnish conductor Susanna Mälkki. Displaying something of the impressive range of both the orchestra and conductor, it brought together a fascinating intersection of orchestral color and fantasy in Ravel’s Ma mère l’oye (Mother Goose Suite), the pointed social commentary of Andrew Norman’s Split, a duo-piano concerto decrying the isolation resulting from the social media addiction of our society, and the summation of various influences on Rachmaninoff’s music in his final and arguably greatest orchestral work, Symphonic Dances.
[…] Ravel’s final version begins with Pavan of the Sleeping Beauty, which Mälkki and the orchestra imbued with dreamy beauty tinged with sad yearning… Mälkki and the BSO proved themselves accomplished storytellers.
[…] Mälkki, as well, showed impressive mastery of this undoubtedly difficult score, directing with precision and nuance while navigating complex rhythms and sudden contrasts of mood, dynamic, texture, and color.
[…]
In the most virtuosic of the three movements, Mälkki generated great excitement eliciting both razor-sharp rhythms and fiery passion. She also had the fortitude to follow the composer’s instruction at the very end, letting the final crash of the tam-tam vibrate alone well after the rest of the orchestra had cut off; few other conductors dare do that, particularly in the acoustic splendor of Symphony Hall.”
The Boston Musical Intelligencer
“The Finnish conductor needed both arms and plenty of energy for Norman’s duo-piano premiere, but Split was framed by two quite different settings. For Ravel’s characterful Mother Goose Suite, originally for piano duo as well, later a ballet, and here an orchestral suite, Mälkki kept a child-like touch befitting the composer’s idea of rendering fairy-tales in music. Tom Thumb lost in the forest, an Empress’ pentatonic serenade at bath, Beauty and the Beast — Ravel loved children and their stories, and imbued them worthily.
At the conclusion, Mälkki and the orchestra bathed in the warm embrace of an audience yearning just for music… for this evening the sound of Norman, Ravel, and Rachmaninoff, under Mälkki’s persuasive guidance, were enough.”