Curtis Institute of Music celebrates Gary Graffman's 90th birthday

Graffman attended both and stood quietly and spoke modestly as his praises were sung. Performances featured his former student, pianist Haochen Zhang, in Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30, and the Curtis Symphony Orchestra in two works that displayed its mettle, Igor Stravinsky’s “Petrushka” and Augusta Read Thomas’s Brio.

"Accessible and uncompromising"

Brio led off the concerts, the second of which I attended. Thomas intended it as a portrait of its commissioning patron, but it tosses its motifs and phrases busily from one section of the orchestra to another, with mostly open, pointillistic writing underscored by percussion. Under conducting fellow Yue Bao, the orchestra handled the work with vigor and aplomb.

Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto followed his Second Symphony by two years, and together they represent his most impressive orchestral achievements. The concerto was legendarily difficult for a soloist, and although knottier works would follow in the 20th century, it still demands virtuosity and fortitude.

The work rests solidly in the Romantic tradition, accounting in part for its enduring popularity. But for this listener, what keeps Rachmaninoff fresh is that his music is both accessible and uncompromising, expressing an instinctive aristocracy of the spirit.

There is never anything lush in Rachmaninoff for mere effect, so there remains an underlying forthrightness and rigor even in his most richly colored passages. Nothing is wasted, nothing is overstated, nothing is there for show.

Zhang, slight and youthful-looking, is already well embarked on the international career that followed his winning the gold medal at the 2009 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Zhang was still a Curtis student when that happened, graduating three years later. This fact attests to his deep indebtedness to Graffman and his own personal modesty.

His entrance in the opening Allegro ma non tanto stated the principal theme with great delicacy, but he soon proved himself master of the score’s extraordinary demands. The orchestra, led by Giancarlo Guerrero, was sensitively attuned to Zhang and fully at home in Rachmaninoff’s sonorous textures.

Healing and hope

The year 1911 was an annus mirabilis in 20th-century music, its products including Sibelius’s Fourth Symphony, Elgar’s Second, Reinhold Gliere’s Ilya Mourometz Symphony, Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle, Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, and Prokofiev’s First Piano Concerto. But no work had a greater effect than Igor Stravinsky’s ballet Petrushka.

Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, introduced two years later, produced a greater shock effect, but in Petrushka he made the great leap into what would be the new century’s distinctive sound: lean, crisp, and sharp, with a tone of kaleidoscopic mood shifts and knowing, witty mockery.

Even after more than 100 years and especially after the concert’s previous immersion in Rachmaninoff, it still feels revolutionary and has lost none of its capacity to refresh and provoke. The orchestra performed it with zest, relish, and poise, and the music had Maestro Guerrero fairly dancing off the podium in delight.

The horrific shooting in Pittsburgh occurred at almost the same moment as the Curtis performance, reminding us how easily barbarism threatens the culture that nurtures beauty and affirms our humanity. But Curtis, one of our great cultural institutions, also reminds us of our resilience, and its youthful orchestra — changing personnel with each year but maintaining its perpetual excellence — is the best response I can think of to what now besets us.

More than music was being made in Verizon Hall, and the tributes to Gary Graffman by students and colleagues attest not only to his musicianship but to his role as mentor and guide. They could not have brought a greater sense of healing and hope.