I attended Osorio’s concert in Chicago this afternoon. I’ve never seen him or have even listened to any of his recordings so I was not sure what to expect. But what a nice concert – I enjoyed every minute! And boy, can he play!!
This was the program:
1. J. S. Bach, arr. Rummel – Ertödt uns durch dein’ Güte from Cantata No. 22
2. J. S. Bach, arr. Busoni – Chorale Prelude, Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV 659
3. Prokofiev – Piano Sonata No. 5 in C Major, Op. 135/38
Intermission
4. Chopin – Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58
5. Brahms – Four Piano Pieces, Op. 119
Intermezzo in B minor
Intermezzo in E minor
Intermezzo in C Major
Rhapsody in E-flat Major
6. Albéniz – selections from Suite Espanola No. 1, Op. 47
Granada
Sevilla
Asturias
7. Ponce
Intermezzo No. 1
Rapsodia cubana No. 1
8. Liszt – Vallee d’Obermann
I’ll talk a little about some of these.
Out of the two Bach pieces, I really liked the second one and will put it on my ‘to do’ list. The Prokofiev was a huge contrast to the Bach and was really interesting. I especially liked the end. Wow! The Chopin Sonata – wow again. Of course I know this piece well but have never seen anyone play it live. He was so good. How someone’s fingers can move so fast is just amazing to me. His tone was beautiful too. And so were his trills. Extremely fast and even!
After intermission came the Brahms. I’m also putting those three Intermezzi on my ‘to do’ list. Really lovely pieces! Next, came Albéniz. I’ve already fooled around with Granada and now I’ll get serious with it because I’d forgotten how much I liked it. Asturias was fun to watch. Talk about fast repeating notes! I think he missed a couple of the fast leaps to opposite ends of the keyboard, but so what. It was still fun. After that came the two Ponce pieces. I just now printed off the Intermezzo No. 1 because it’s a pretty piece and not too difficult. The Rapsodia cubana No. 1 is a really cool piece. I’ve never heard it before, but I really liked it. I'm sure it’s too difficult for me, but I’d love if you one of you more advanced players here would take it on. Trust me, you’ll love it.
The final piece was Liszt’s Vallee d’Obermann, and I immediately thought of a few of you PS men. I have never heard it before until just about a month or so ago, and now I’ve heard it twice from two members and now by Osorio. I think it is a nice piece, but probably not something I’d take on. Seems to me like it is a ‘man’s’ piece – and more specifically a ‘man of a certain age’. Not sure why I think that - oh well, whatever...
Two encores followed. The first one was by Debussy, but I didn’t hear what he said as far as the title. All I know is that it reminded be of buzzing bees. Before Osorio came out for his second encore, I was thinking to myself, “I hope he plays Granados”. And guess what? He did! It was the No. 2 Spanish Dance. It’s that real pretty and seductive one that I like a lot. And a friend and I were just talking about that very same piece just a few days ago so that was kind of weird. He played it nicely. His trills are much better than mine; I’m going to have to redo my recording of it one of these days. But he did make one pretty big slip. I doubt if anyone caught it but I did since I know the piece well. He managed to cover it up fairly well, though.
And that was that. The concert started at 3:00 and we didn’t leave until 5:30, so it was a nice, long concert. Like I said before, I really enjoyed it – except for the darn people who just have to cough right during the soft parts. I hate that! If I ever have to cough, I squeeze my lips together and hold my breath until the urge to cough goes away. Eh, what can you do?…
Fashion time – Osorio wore a dark suit, either dark gray, blue, or black, a white shirt and light gray tie. And he played on the Hamburg Steinway.
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