ISO assistant conductor, guest soloist show glow of Russian full noon and twilight

Not many people agree with modernist icon Pierre Boulez's assessment of Tchaikovsky's music: "an abomination," he called it. Decades ago, I was astonished to see the Russian master not included in Donald J. Grout's category of major composers in an early edition of "A History of Western Music," which enjoyed high status as a textbook in the late 20th century.

I can easily get my fill of Tchaikovsky, but I'm not among the debunkers. I think his Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor stands tall among masterpieces, and it deserves its admired place in public esteem. Surely any history of music should take popularity into account when it comes to assessing a composer's status.

Van Cliburn's recording in 1958 cemented the Texan's position as the worthy winner of the Tchaikovsky

Su-Han Yang is the ISO's assistant conductor.

Competition in Moscow at the height of the Cold War. It went platinum, meaning more than 1 million copies were sold — a first for classical music. The piece had staying power before that milestone, as it has ever since.

Michelle Cann played it Friday night in an Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra  concert conducted by Su-Han Yang, the ISO's assistant conductor. And the most popular Russian composer in the Romantic vein after Tchaikovsky occupied the post-intermission side of the program. Sergei Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 3 in A minor afforded a rare showcase for Yang in the Classical Series.

Both of the featured performers communicated their zest for the Russian works. Without grandstanding, a spotlighted musician can always forge that all-important bond with the audience if his or her investment in the music seems whole-hearted. Friday night's large, appreciative audience clearly sensed that.

After the horns' stentorian presentation of the first-movement introduction's call to attention, Cann delivered a passionate statement of the famous theme (known to our grandparents in its pop costume as "Tonight We Love") that is ignored once the first movement proper gets under way. Tchaikovsky was that kind of melodist: he could launch a beauty and just let it float in the collective memory while getting on to other splendid business.

Cann's playing sparkled throughout, with crisp accents setting up a contrast with the soaring second theme. As for the orchestra, the heavy first climax was titanic, yet it conveyed a welcome sense of swelling up from within, rather than being imposed, as if to say "Let's stack on more loud here!" In the second movement, a childlike lyricism by wind soloists and the piano, with an elfin mood coming into play, exuded charm.

Michelle Cann displayed affinity for Tchaikovsky.

The soloist's playing of the finale emphasized an aspect I'm hesitant to praise, lest I be accused of indulging in a stereotype, even a positive one. Someone editing my copy at the newspaper that employed me once objected to my noting the Italian predilection for song. 

All right, I can acknowledge that there are tone-deaf Italians, as there are probably African-Americans who rhythmically have two left feet. But I believe the point that a feeling for the animating force of rhythm is characteristic of black musicians may be worth frankly acknowledging: in jazz, for instance, just about everyone concedes that black bands in the Swing Era swung more than white ones.

That said, let me boldly praise the incisiveness and inspiring drive of Cann's rhythm. It was adroitly seconded by Yang's management of the accompaniment. I might only take exception to the soloist's sameness of tone in the piano's stormiest passages: they were clearly stated despite prominent pedaling, but here as well as in the first movement more variation in sound would have been welcome. Tchaikovsky's hearty moods aren't all pervaded by the same pumping of adrenaline, after all. 

Cann's cute choice of an encore foreshadowed the Rachmaninoff in the second half. It was a jazzy parody of the Russian's most familiar solo piece, the Prelude in C-sharp minor, which he grew to hate in a way that probably never bothered Judy Garland with "Over the Rainbow." The elaboration was a full-throated improvisation by Hazel Scott, who planted her feet in both jazz and classical worlds. It merited the further cheers Cann had received after the Tchaikovsky concerto.

Yang's clear, imaginative and well-defined stick technique drew from his colleagues a fine performance of Rachmaninoff's 1936 farewell to the symphonic form. Perhaps the exile's residence in the United States, where his life ended in 1943 just short of his 70th birthday in Beverly Hills, loosened up his orchestration from its earlier dark, roiling manner.

This is a perky piece, with the composer more confident in displaying a variety of color. Broad vistas of the sort that lead concertgoers to cherish Rachmaninoff were quite solidly presented in the finale. There are gratifying touches of humor, including Haydnesque pauses just before the final chords. Along the way, there's some imaginative writing for percussion, and among the solos, those by Peter Vickery, sitting in the concertmaster's chair this weekend, had a particularly glossy finish to them. All of this added up Friday to a display of Yang's commitment to this score, which he had credibly imparted to the orchestra.

1943 happens also to have been the date of Polish composer Grazyna Bacewicz's composition of Uwertura (Overture), a vigorous exercise whose wartime provenance comes across as a declaration, always good to process, that when times are awful, it's not necessarily the artist's duty to reflect them. It's instead a shout that "Hey, this is what I do!" Such an assertion puts the world on notice that making art doesn't become less important in a world of woes. Bacewicz's "Overture 1943" merits the date she included in her title, and the work was well-placed to open this weekend's Friday and Saturday concerts.