Review: Pianist Bertrand Chamayou's artistry gleamed bright in Minnesota Orchestra concert

Camille Saint-Saëns needs a champion. While the French composer is admired for his longevity — he was active from the mid-19th century to well into the 20th — your average casual classical music fan knows him only for his "Carnival of the Animals."

But Saint-Saëns wrote a lot of very fine music, much of it boasting memorable melodies. And he may have finally found his 21st-century champion in French pianist Bertrand Chamayou. In 2019, he recorded two Saint-Saëns piano concertos and some of the composer's short works for solo piano, and the album proved a revelation, taking home the Recording of the Year award from Gramophone magazine.

This weekend, Twin Cities audiences have the opportunity to experience that expertise. For Chamayou is soloing with his conductor countryman Fabien Gabel and the Minnesota Orchestra on one of those Saint-Saëns concertos for which the pianist was most deservedly honored, the Fifth, which bears the nickname the "Egyptian."

At Thursday's midday concert, Chamayou proved a fluid and graceful interpreter during the concerto's most heart-filling moments and the bringer of storms on passages both thunderous and lightning-quick. It was the thrilling centerpiece of a concert that showed off the orchestra's way with lush and lovely romantic fare.

Gabel and the orchestra started things off in a dreamy place, opening Anatoly Lyadov's "The Enchanted Lake" with remarkable delicacy in the strings and sending the audience afloat on rippling waves of sound.

On a program that featured two more works evoking watery settings — Erich Wolfgang Korngold's music from the 1940 film "The Sea Hawk, and Peter Tchaikovsky's Fantasy-Overture "The Tempest" — the Saint-Saëns concerto was an earthy exception, even though the composer claimed that its central Andante was inspired by a Nile excursion. Chamayou's hands moved fluidly over the keys, smoothly segueing from lovely legatos, to prancing staccatos, to gently expressive phrases that showed off the pianist's velvet touch.

While the concert featured transporting melodies in every piece, none was as beautiful as the central theme in the Saint-Saëns concerto's slow movement. But the program reached its peak in the work's finale, as Chamayou flew about the keyboard, chords crashing explosively, seemingly testing the strength of the Steinway's strings. His final flourish found him leaping to his feet at the conclusion, the Orchestra Hall audience quickly joining him.

Music for the swashbuckler "The Sea Hawk" served as a reminder that few are the composers creating film music for orchestra who don't owe a debt to Korngold, especially when conveying an uplifting sense of triumph. The Minnesota Orchestra's brass section sent plenty of royal fanfares pealing from the stage, and the French horns and strings collaborated on some sections ideal for misty love scenes.

When it comes to evoking such moods, Tchaikovsky may be the all-time expert. And there was some of that in "The Tempest," although Gabel could have reined in the volume at key points and made it into something truly magical. With its regal fanfares and romantic dreaminess, perhaps the work had too much in common with the Korngold. But both offered a soft landing place after Chamayou's exciting performance.

Minnesota Orchestra

With: Conductor Fabien Gabel and pianist Bertrand Chamayou.

What: Works by Anatol Lyadov, Camille Saint-Saëns, Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Peter Tchaikovsky.

When: 8 p.m. Fri., 7 p.m. Sat.

Where: Orchestra Hall, 1111 Nicollet Mall, Mpls.

Tickets: $36-$111 (choose your price on Saturday), available at 612-371-5656 or minnesotaorchestra.org.

Rob Hubbard is a Twin Cities classical music writer. Reach him at wordhub@yahoo.com.