BSO CONCERT: Symphony Hall, March 16, 2004

Edo de Waarta, conductor
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano

DVORAK Piano Concerto
IVES Thanksgiving and Forefathers' Day
JANACEK Sinfonietta

In person, de Waart reminds me of Bernard Haitink, a fellow Dutchman, although his conducting manner is less stodgy. This came out a lot in the Dvorak, which had more orchestral than piano flair. Aimard was so good, however, that it made you wonder why he'd bothered. A lot of the passagework was tedious, and many of the flourishes worked better as ideas than as actual climaxes. It made me think that Dvorak had a much better handle on orchestration and arrangements than he ever did on pure thematic material.

The Ives was one of the more beautiful and humorous things I've ever heard, a real orchestral showcase complete with offstage horns. What a character: shilling insurance all day and wreaking havoc at night with his scores. The Janacek is glorious, a lot of red faces in the wind section, and after a few bars I realized something that made me feel weirdly stupid: this was what ELP ripped off on their first album on a track called "Knife-Edge," I believe without any credit. Janacek's original is, or course, far more colorful, charged, and resounding without Greg Lake's baleful lyrics -- and delivery.