Classical pianists have more to contend with in the concert hall than they used to.
About a third of the way through the first movement of Brahms' First Concerto at Orchestra Hall Thursday morning, just as soloist Inon Barnatan was launching the gloriously lyrical second subject, the ugly jangle of a cellphone broke the near-silence.
If Barnatan was disconcerted by it, he recovered quickly, although it was a jarring moment in an otherwise gripping Minnesota Orchestra performance.
His account of the opening movement was wonderfully imperious, fired by the muscular virtuosity that Brahms' writing needs. His tensile trilling bristled with emotional intensity, and there was rage and splendor mingled in the thunderous octave outbursts heralding the movement's conclusion.
Yet the pianist is a poet, too, and caught the undertow of tragedy in the music, which Brahms wrote in response to news of his friend Schumann's attempted suicide. The beautiful Adagio breathed poetry, too, as Barnatan distilled an aching sense of tenderness from a movement Brahms intended as "a lovely portrait" of Schumann's wife, Clara. Barnatan's glowing tonal quality was especially notable, with a delectable balancing of chords and voices between the hands and fingers.
The finale avoided gruffness and bluster, for once plausibly suggesting the eventual triumph of the individual over the force of heavy circumstance.
The audience wanted an encore, and Barnatan supplied it — the second Intermezzo from Brahms' Op. 118 pieces, played with liquid pianism and probing emotional intelligence.
Conductor Jader Bignamini, making his Minnesota Orchestra debut, accompanied the concerto tautly, never allowing orchestral passages to sag or take a maudlin turn.
