South Florida Classical Review

Marc-Andre Hamelin performed Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 12 with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra Wednesday night at the Kravis Center. Photo: Canetty Clarke

The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra raided the piano repertory for its concert Wednesday night in West Palm Beach, playing orchestrated versions of keyboard works by Beethoven and Schubert.

The ensemble performed transcriptions of the Allegretto from Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 17 and Schubert’s complete Piano Sonata in B-flat, in a concert that traded the percussive clarity of the piano for the varied tone colors of the orchestra. The musicians, famous for performing without a conductor, also played a piano work in its original form, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 12 with soloist Marc-André Hamelin.

The playing throughout the Kravis Center concert was at the high level to be expected from the Orpheus musicians. But the orchestrated piano works felt flat, lacking in the character and incisiveness that would be provided by a single interpreter leaning over a keyboard. While the offbeat programming gets points for originality, it seemed like there were better uses for this excellent orchestra’s time.

The concert opened with the movement from the Beethoven sonata, nicknamed “The Tempest,” in an orchestration commissioned by Orpheus from the American-Canadian composer Zachary Wadsworth.

Violins played the restless opening theme in a clipped manner that avoided sounding excessively smooth. The arrangement made effective use of the melodic possibilities of the clarinet. But the work sounded oddly under-orchestrated, with the single horn, clarinet and bassoon sounding solitary and poorly integrated with the strings.

The Schubert sonata, which the composer completed just weeks before his death, started off sounding like a lavishly orchestrated version of one of his mature chamber works. But as skillfully as the strings played, they couldn’t help sounding mushy compared to the cleanly articulated notes of the piano.

The horn, clarinet and bassoon blended better with the ensemble in this work. The Andante was the most successful movement of the evening. Over a hushed accompaniment in the strings, the wind instruments played the movement’s grave melodies, creating a moonlit glow reminiscent of parts of Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony. The concluding Presto was also more successful, with the orchestra achieving a light texture that avoided the ponderous tone of some of the rest of the work.

Hamelin, known for his explosive technique and wide-ranging musical interests, brought his gifts to a light Mozart concerto that he brought off with style and authority.

Seated at a concert grand that would have appeared gigantic to Mozart, he played the opening Allegro with an effortless, rippling sonority, keeping everything within Classical proportions with the exception of a couple of grand sweeps up the keyboard. The orchestra played with a surprisingly rich sound for such a small ensemble, with buoyancy and incisive precision.

The Andante was a highlight of the concert, with Hamelin playing with a singing tone in the long, sighing, almost Romantic melody at the heart of the movement. There were no fireworks in the last movement, nor were any expected. In Hamelin’s hands, the melodious music proceeded with stately elegance, the runs and ornaments played with rounded, buttery smoothness.

As an encore he played the opening movement of Prokofiev’s Sarcasms, hammering away at the keyboard in this aggressive work that couldn’t have provided greater contrast with the Mozart concerto.

The Kravis Center’s classical series continues 2 p.m. Sunday with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Andris Nelsons in Mozart’s Symphony No. 36 and  Dvořák’s Symphony No. 6. kravis.org