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Nottingham
Evening Post,
7 June2004.William
Ruff.
Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Concerto. Pianist -Noriko Ogawa
I remember the days when you had to be given permission from the vicar just to applaud in church. On Saturday night the audience had no inhibitions about standing and cheering - not surprising when the playing of Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Concerto was as electric as Noriko Ogawa's.
Despite her eminence and celebrity she has remained loyal to St. Mary's over many years, and in her hands this most popular of concertos seemed new-minted. With both power and poetry she inflected one theme after another with a yearning, bitterwseet intensity. From the opening chords to the rapturous maestoso ending this was a performance which rekindled a sense of wonder at the work's power to excite and move.
As one would expect from a concert conducted by (and celebrating) John Keys, nothing about it could be called 'ordinary'. The concerto unusually stood alone in the second half of a programme which had already demonstrated the versitility of the orchestra - equally convincing in some sprightly Handel as they were in their fresh, vital playing of Elgar's Seranade.
The Choir
of St. Mary's was on excellent form too - both in their radient chrous
from Elgar's The Apostles and, undeterred by the drums and trumpets
pitted against them, in their incisive performance of Bach's cantata
Nun is das Heil.
William Ruff