The last time pianist Leslie Howard played Abravanel Hall it was something of a double novelty - his first concerto date in all the years he has been coming to Utah, and what was probably the first performance in these parts of the original version of the Tchaikovsky Second Piano Concerto.
Monday, however, he returned - again, with the University of Utah's Utah Philharmonia - in a standard-repertoire piece, Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 (the "Emperor" Concerto), part of an all-Beethoven program that also included the Symphony No. 5 and the "Leonore" Overture No. 3. No real novelties there.But there was nothing routine about his performance. Indeed, this was one of the most grandly voiced "Emperors" I have ever heard, from the glistening octave flourishes at the opening to the liquid clarity of the trills, here every bit as elegant and illuminating.
The result was a wonderfully songful outpouring in this, the most regal of all piano concertos. Yet at the same time the pianist caught the rhythmic vitality of the outer movements - the finale bursting on the scene vibrantly and impulsively, with some dazzling runs - and the delicacy and solemnity of the slow movement, also ultimately lyrical. The whole was capped, moreover, by a dashingly brilliant coda.
Nor was he let down by the orchestra, which despite a few slips likewise communicated the inner calm of the slow movement and the solidity of the rest.
For that credit music director Robert Debbaut, who got similarly heroic results in the other two pieces on the program.
I'm not sure I'd have opted to begin the concert's second half with the "Leonore" No. 3, which here meant moving the piano to center stage following the overture rather than during intermission.
But the Fifth Symphony made for an electrifying opening, bristling with tension and forward impulse. Yet there was still room to savor the snap of the bowstrings in the famous "V-for-Victory" motto and the richness of the horns, not always perfectly reliable but wonderfully full-throated.
Similarly one admired the lift the low strings brought to the Andante, with its flavorful woodwinds and striding climaxes. And if things loosened up a bit in the ghostly bridge to the finale, there was still the tautness of the trio beforehand and the noble outburst that followed, a momentary ensemble glitch notwithstanding.
The orchestra dug no less manfully into "Leonore" No. 3, though here the classical discipline seemed less consistently maintained.
Still, the buildup to the first big climax was well managed, even if the results seemed a trifle uncongealed. Nor could the coda have been much more exciting, with every one of its rapidly articulated figures firmly in place.
Suggesting that the football field may not be the only place the U. is gaining ground on its neighbors to the south these days. And that next time perhaps the program should include a pair of Mozart symphonies - say, Nos. 34 and 17?