This past weekend's concerts from the National Symphony Orchestra provided the second opportunity in the last month or so to hear Yundi Li play Liszt's first piano concerto. The first time was with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra at George Mason (reviewed last month), and the coincidence demands a comparison.

On both occasions, Li has played the work with impressive accuracy and grace, with renditions remarkably similar to his recent recording. There were a few negligible mistakes here and there, sprinkled in different places than in the Fairfax concert, but Li again played with verve and grace, enough to convince even those uninclined to like this arch-Romantic concerto. Liszt supposedly had the concerto's main theme echo the rhythm and intonation of a phrase in German — "Das versteht Ihr alle nicht!" (None of you understands that!) punctuated by "Nur ich!" (I alone!). That theme, forceful and a little pompous, sets the tone of the work, giving the virtuosic demands of the solo part a supercilious air. Language-derived melody is a common thread in Romantic music: Schumann did the same thing in the first movement of his Spring Symphony, as did Chopin in his ballades for piano.

It is good to give one's ears some context when listening repeatedly to a local group of musicians. Unfortunately, but perhaps not surprisingly, the NSO did not stack up all that well against the Leipzig Gewandhaus. Leonard Slatkin's low brass were as solid as ever, but the strings had a few bad passages and a general lack of unity, not glaring but noticeable. Concertmaster Nurit Bar-Josef's brief solo moment with Li in the concerto was marred by a nervous-sounding vibrato. The winds were up and down in beauty of tone and accuracy, with the oboe being the worst offender. The percussion were mostly solid, although Li's duet with the triangle could have used more tinkle. This is not to say that the NSO is not a good orchestra, having improved considerably under Slatkin's tenure, but there are reasons that the group is not listed in the highest tier of excellent orchestras.

Photo of Yundi Li by Deutsche Grammophon

The NSO's best playing came in the opening set of Ravel pieces, two of them well-known — Slatkin avoided Bolero, thank God — and two less so. Slatkin drove the players through the fast sections of Alborada del gracioso, with the muted trumpet's repeated notes an impressive blur of sound. The gracioso, the jester of the Madrid royal court, is heard singing in the well-played bassoon solo of the work's middle section. The context is evocative and potentially comic: an alborada — or aubade — is a type of poem associated with the troubadours and trouvères, meant to be the song of a lover upon rising after an illicit night with his beloved. Ravel's skill as an orchestrator sparkled through in Slatkin's shading of the NSO's performance, with strong piano/forte contrasts and dazzling shifts of color. The horn solo that has the famous melody of the Pavane pour une infante défunte was good, if a little disjointed from its orchestral backing. The harps shimmered and roared throughout the Ravel set, as the composer gave them quite a workout. The famous La Valse had a mysterious, suave opening and accelerated to a berserk conclusion, if not perhaps enough to induce madness, as was often feared of the wild waltz.

The most intriguing part of the Ravel set was a piece called Menuet antique, which the NSO performed for the first time ever in this set of concerts. The composer wrote that this "ancient minuet" was admittedly anachronistic, "faithful to the Greece of my dreams." This may make the piece a musical counterpart to the evocation of ancient Greece in Proust's A l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleur. Ravel's work is a sort of cumbersome dance, with a charming section for low brass and winds, while the Trio is more gentle, featuring a solo clarinet. It would not surprise me if this performance is the last we hear of the Menuet antique from the NSO for a while.

The concert's second half was given over to Slatkin's personal selection of pieces from Prokofiev's music for the ballet Romeo and Juliet, which we reviewed from the Kirov Ballet in January. Slatkin's tendency to drive the tempo forward led to a few ensemble problems, especially in the Introduction, the Fight, and the Dance of the Knights. By the end of the set, the NSO sounded unified and powerful, with a nice solo string trio in the Balcony Scene, impressive swells of sound in the Love Dance, and loud bombast in the Finale. The audience, in fairly large numbers for a holiday weekend, responded with polite applause to both halves, too restrained even to coax a pre-intermission encore from Yundi Li after the Liszt concerto.

The next set of concerts from the National Symphony Orchestra is in two weeks, April 19 to 21. The program, with violinist Christian Tetzlaff and Jiří Bĕlohlávek at the podium, is an excellent one, combining an exciting selection of Czech music, both famous and intriguingly obscure, as well as one of the Mozart violin concertos. Full-time students may be able to buy $10 tickets to the Thursday and Friday concerts, through the Attend! program.