Program

Smetana:	Overture to The Bartered Bride
Mozart:	Piano Concerto No. 24 in C Minor, K. 491
Beethoven:	Symphony No. 3 in E-Flat Major, Op. 55, "Eroica"

Performers

Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Cyprien Katsaris, piano Zdenek Macal, conductor

Zdenek Macal's last appearance in Madison as music director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Sunday afternoon at the Union Theater offered a detailed reading from memory of Beethoven's Eroica Symphony that despite overall brilliance suffered a few surprising lapses of ensemble. The orchestra was less supportive than I expected in Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24 in C Minor, K. 491, though Cyprien Katsaris gave a poetic and extremely clean account of the solo part, marred only by an overlong and stylistically bizarre cadenza-pastiche in the first movement. The opening piece, the overture to Smetana's The Bartered Bride, was taken at breakneck speed, and in terms of sheer brilliance, excitement and flawless playing was the most effective work on the program.

Isthmus, October, 1994
Copyright 1994 Jess Anderson