Orli Shaham, the Vancouver Symphony’s first-ever artist in residence, will collaborate with the orchestra in a special chamber music concert on Sunday afternoon. Shaham, who teaches at The Julliard School of Music, is an acclaimed pianist with many CD recordings, including upcoming releases of the final two volumes of the complete piano sonatas by Mozart.
This Sunday afternoon (May 19) at the First Presbyterian Church in Vancouver, Shaham will collaborate with members of the Vancouver Symphony to perform Mozart's “Divertimento in D major”, Haydn’s “Piano Concerto in D major”, and Mozart’s “Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor.”
I spoke with Shaham via Zoom to find out more about the concert. Here’s transcription of our conversation, which has been lightly edited.
James Bash: So tell us about the programming of this concert. Why did you pick these pieces?
Orli Shaham: These pieces center around D major and D minor. The Mozart “Divertimento” sets up a delightful character for the strings. It’s quite lyrical and fun. Mozart’s toys with the listeners’ emotions, leading you a certain way and then pulling a surprise.
The Haydn concerto is much in the same way, and he wrote it in the happy key of D major. The Haydn is deeply beautiful and sparingly written in places, but it also gives you a rollicking good time with its Hungarian, folksy flavor. It was just a little subversive and risqué for his patrons and other listeners that he was writing for. Haydn wrote for an audience of wealthy people that he knew very well. He has no qualms when he pokes fun at them.
The Mozart concerto is the polar opposite. It’s filled with great emotional energy and pathos. It has feeling of angst and is unsettled – very intense. It is one greatest concertos in the repertoire and is one of my desert island pieces. When the piano first comes in, it comes in not at all with any of the material that we’ve heard from the orchestra. And that piano opening was one of the reasons I want to become a pianist when I was a little kid. When I heard my older brother, Shai, learning it, I thought that it was the piece that I wanted to play some day. I had to play that instrument and that piece!
I feel that Haydn was in many ways more experimental than Mozart. Haydn really knew his audience and dares them and takes his music a little out of bounds. Mozart can take you to the same places, but he stays within the lines, But what he is able to do with that is emotionally so colorful and vivid and so varied! Mozart was writing for the aristocrats just as Haydn did, but Mozart also for the newly formed public that was coming into existence and learning things and buying concert tickets.
JB: Have you performed the Haydn and Mozart concertos a lot?
OS: I’ve played the Haydn since I was nine years old, and I’ve played the Mozart more than any other concerto.
JB: Will you be conducting from the keyboard?
OS: Yes, but only for the concerti. I’ll conduct the "Divertimento" like a normal conductor.
JB: When was the first time that you conducted a professional orchestra from the keyboard?
OS: That was in 2002 with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall.
JB: Conducting must run in the family, since you are also married to David Robertson.
OS: Now our two teenage sons want to become conductors!
JB: Wonderful! We wish you well with the concerts!
OS: Thank you! It will be a lot of fun to make music with the Vancouver Symphony!
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