Boston Classical Review

Andris Nelsons conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra in music of Beethoven and Francisco Coll Thursday night. Photo: Robert Torres

One of the best aspects of Andris Nelsons’ tenure as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra has been the conductor’s advocacy for a wide swath of contemporary composers.

His predecessor, James Levine, took a far more limited view of things, tending to champion cerebral arch-modernists like Elliott Carter and Charles Wuorinen. Nelsons has been appreciably harder to pin down on the stylistic spectrum, and the new music he leads—especially that by European composers—often reminds that harmonic and rhythmic complexity can also involve a refreshing point of view and even a sense of humor.

Such was the case on Thursday night when the conductor presided over the American premiere of Francisco Coll’s Piano Concerto with Kirill Gerstein at Symphony Hall. Co-commissioned by the BSO and first heard in Munich in March, the 20-minute-long score is a playground of virtuosity for all involved.

Like his former teacher, Thomas Adès, the 41-year-old Coll is a master of abstraction. The concerto’s three movements—“Humoresque,” “Ballada,” and “Rag”—all connote more or less specific musical types, but those labels need to be taken with teaspoonsful (or shovels-full) of salt, so thoroughly are their contents broken down, reorganized, magnified, and distorted.

Similarly, the larger work’s structure suggests tradition: its fast outer movements frame a central section of immense weight and pathos. But the music’s overriding tone, at least in the “Humoresque” and “Rag,” is often surreal and irreverent.

Interestingly, Gerstein was muse for both Coll and Adès in their respective concerti. And, indeed, it is difficult not to hear the new work as being closely related to that of the latter, especially in their corresponding nods to György Ligeti and Conlon Nancarrow. Still, while they share an accent, one is not merely a gloss on the other.

Kirill Gerstein performed Francisco Coll’s Piano Concerto with the BSO Thursday night. Photo: Robert Torres

On Thursday, Gerstein took to his part with a seeming ease that was all the more astonishing for the finger-busting challenges he was asked to overcome. In the “Humoresque,” the Russian-born artist brought a sparkle to the music’s cartoonish energy, navigating its explosive, virtually non-stop writing with a light touch and no shortage of projection.

The finale, though perhaps a bit too similar to the opening part in gesture and tone, found its way to a welcome, albeit short, episode of delicate repose. In between came a “Ballada” of searingly resonant soulfulness.

Though his piano writing runs the gamut of glittering passagework, dense clusters, and thudding chords, it is Coll’s handling of the orchestra in this concerto that really stands out. His management of that collective is striking throughout, especially in the middle movement, with its panoramic sense of space and command of atmosphere.

Nelsons drew out the ensemble’s fascinating doublings and echoes of the soloist in that “Ballada” with nuanced assurance. The BSO’s contributions in other sections were commendably balanced and marked by a stimulating blend of rhythmic security and color.

Afterwards, Gerstein shared “a different side of Francisco,” playing Coll’s Little Viennese Waltz—essentially a caffeinated deconstruction of an Alfred Grünfeld-type souvenir—for an encore.

As it happened, the impish spirit of Coll’s concerto paired well with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7. Though not the German composer’s most carefree score, the music’s freewheeling personality came out strongly on this night, which featured Nelsons and the BSO firing on pretty much all cylinders.

True, there were a surprising number of dropped notes from winds and brasses, the pairing omitted the exposition repeats in the symphony’s outer movements, and the finale was taken at a breathless clip that became a bit over-insistent. But the orchestra’s sheer energy and its attention to balances and dynamics paid dividends: shaping the latter meant, among other things, that the concluding Allegro con brio’s climax packed catharsis and release, not just frenetic fillips.

Besides, the Vivace’s unfussy rhythmic energy was irresistible and the Scherzo, taken at an appropriately brisk clip, emerged with exuberant clarity. The latter’s two Trio’s functioned as needed respites from the chase.

Though Nelsons is sometimes sidetracked in lyrical music—those sections in the Coriolan Overture, the night’s occasionally ragged opener, struggled to stay on top of the beat—Thursday’s take on the Allegretto was touchingly resonant and well-directed.

The program will be repeated 1:30 p.m. Friday and 8 p.m. Saturday at Symphony Hall. bso.org

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