Cadenza

Alexander Toradze's account of Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto is both fascinating and perverse, enthralling and infuriating.The performance that the 39-year-old Georgian-born, Russian-trained pianist gave of the piece last night in Meyerhoff Hall with the Baltimore Symphony and guest conductor Zdenek Macal was the slowest that this listener has ever heard.At about 48 minutes, it was a full quarter of an hour longer than the first recorded performances of the composer himself and of Vladimir Horowitz (albeit with a few cuts)

Violist Kim Kashkashian performs at PeabodyViolist Kim Kashkashian is one of the most passionate musicians and one of the few people who has ever been able to give her neglected instrument star status. The Peabody Conservatory alumna will perform Tuesday at 8:15 p.m. in Friedberg Hall with another Peabody alumnus, the talented pianist Charles Abramovic. Their beautiful program will include Brahms' Sonata in E-flat, Britten's "Lachrymae," Falla's "Suite Populaire" and Penderecki's "Cadenza for Solo Viola."

I heard the Columbia Orchestra for the first time Saturday evening when the ensemble opened its 22nd season -- its first under music director Jason Love -- with Verdi's overture to "Nabucco," Beethoven's First Piano Concerto, and the Ravel orchestration of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition." The overwhelming impression is that Columbia hired the right guy. Love has the musicians playing not only with verve and passion, but with the awareness to enter into the emotional core of the works they perform.

Midori's appearance with David Zinman and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra last night in Meyerhoff Hall made three things abundantly clear. She looks great in yellow; she plays the violin sensationally well; and she isn't yet mature enough to have much of an idea of what the Brahms Violin Concerto is about.A 19-year-old violinist shouldn't be expected to give authoritative performances of pieces as profound as the Brahms Concerto, of course. But this listener heard Midori perform a superb Sibelius Concerto a month ago despite an indifferent accompaniment from conductor Kurt Masur and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, so he had hopes.

Snow-clogged streets and the threat of another storm kept all but about 900 hardy souls away from Meyerhoff Hall last night to hear the Baltimore Symphony, guest conductor James DePreist and violin soloist Vadim Repin.Those who stayed because they thought they were having a hard time should attend to the troubles of DePreist and Repin. Not only did the weather cause them to lose a rehearsal, but because of airport closings, both men had to catch red-eyes from the West Coast late Tuesday night.

The kind of musician that the violist Kim Kashkashian is was apparent from the way she performed de Falla's "Suite $l Populaire" last night in Friedberg Hall.Most string players would have been content to toss off Paul Kochanski's transcriptions of the Spanish composer's "Popular Songs" with aplomb and brilliance. There was plenty of that from this violist, but she was also able to find poetry in each of these miniatures, often revealing an elegiac quality. Even in the rollicking "Jota" there was a note of sadness.

The cool detachment, near faultless control and nervous edge of his playing is what has made pianist John Browning so dTC persuasive an interpreter of the Prokofiev and Ravel concertos. Those qualities were on hand last night in Meyerhoff Hall when Mr. Browning joined Zdenek Macal and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for a performance of Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor.Unfortunately, Mr. Browning's assets are not those necessary for success in this stormy, passionate concerto. This pianist generates enough sound for the piece, but it is not the right kind of sound: It is somewhat metallic, and it is presented in terms of light and shade without regard to color.

Bruno Leonardo Gelber walked out toward the piano on the stage of Meyerhoff Hall very slowly last night. The Argentine pianist's pronounced limp was the result of childhood polio. The remarkably fluent piano playing he produced in Rachmaninov's ThirdBruno Leonardo Gelber walked out toward the piano on the stage of Meyerhoff Hall very slowly last night. The Argentine pianist's pronounced limp was the result of childhood polio. The remarkably fluent piano playing he produced in Rachmaninov's Third Concerto -- in which he was accompanied by David Zinman and the Baltimore Symphony -- was the result of childhood prodigy that was long ago nurtured into adult mastery.

All I knew about George Pehlivanian until yesterday was that he was young -- he is in his early 30s -- and that he was scheduled to lead this week's Baltimore Symphony concerts. After hearing him in Meyerhoff Hall last night lead the orchestra in Saint-Saens' Symphony No. 3 in C Minor (the so-called "Organ Symphony") and accompany violinist Elmar Oliveira in Beethoven's Concerto in D, I know enough to want him hear him again.That he is a talented conductor was apparent from the the first notes of the program-opening Beethoven concerto.

IT'S GOOD TO HEAR Michael Torke's music spread out over several concerts, as we are this month as David Zinman and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra highlight the young composer in the orchestra's first American Composer Showcase.This is not so much because you can chart Torke's stylistic growth; his 1985 "Bright Blue Music," heard Friday on the BSO's Favorites Series, does not seem very distant from "Ash," a piece written only last year and heard at Meyerhoff Hall last week.It's more the ability to encounter a Torke work, with all its bubbly optimism (so alien to post-war contemporary music)