Thursday evening's concert by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra turned into an impromptu welcome for the German pianist and conductor Christian Zacharias, whose appointment as the SPCO's next artistic partner, beginning in the 2009-10 season, was announced earlier in the week. (One of the less-remarked features of the orchestra's current artistic partner system is that it entails relatively frequent comings and goings, with accompanying bursts of publicity.) In effect, Zacharias will succeed another pianist-conductor, Pierre-Laurent Aimard -- a musician with a rather different profile.
Whether by accident or design, Zacharias' program, which began with Stravinsky's "Danses concertantes" (1942) and ended with Bizet's "Symphony in C" (1855), conjured another presence: that of choreographer George Balanchine, who twice made dances to both these scores. (Balanchine's seductive and exhilarating "Symphony in C" is one of the great tutu ballets, forever fresh.)
To one who first encountered this music in the theater, it can seem a little two dimensional (or disembodied) in the concert hall. But Zacharias and the SPCO made both pieces dance in the mind. Sensitive to Stravinsky's undercurrent of parody, the performers delivered his clashing, sometimes swaggering rhythms with incisiveness and verve. Bizet was no less well-served, the dreamy sensuality of his Adagio ravishingly captured by oboist Kathryn Greenbank.
Between Stravinsky and Bizet came Chopin's F-minor Piano Concerto (miscalled No. 2), in which Zacharias adroitly juggled the duties of pianist and conductor.
One of the chief interpretive challenges in Chopin's music is to weld its poetic and virtuosic elements (which can seem to pull in different directions) into a convincing whole. Zacharias did this masterfully. Often improvisatory in feel, his playing had the plasticity and the delicacy of shading that brings Chopin's notation alive. Most bewitching was the nocturnal Larghetto, with its striking, recitative-like middle section. Only the balances between piano and orchestra were occasionally problematic. (Was that a microphone I saw cozying up to the lone double bass?)
Gangling, a bit stooped, Zacharias has a professorial air. He does nothing for mere effect. At moments on Thursday, especially in Chopin, it seemed to me that the orchestra could have played with greater keenness and refinement than he was asking for. But with time and familiarity, that should change. Zacharias is a musician of substance, and his tenure here promises much to savor.
Larry Fuchsberg writes frequently about music.
