Alexander Toradze is back

«The Palm Beach Symphony closed out its forty-seventh season on May 22 with a concert of Ravel and Brahms featuring the Georgian piano soloist Alexander Toradze. Steeped in the international Romantic tradition, Toradze approached Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major, part of the composer’s foray into multi-movement orchestral works, with a sparkling combination of wit and grace, ending the introductory Allegramente movement with a raised hand and faux-serious inquiry to the audience, “Was it any good?”. Ravel never got around to writing a symphony - this Concerto in G premiered in 1931, just six years before his death. Its more dissonant elements, likely inspired by the jazz bands Ravel heard when he toured America in 1928, rolled off Toradze’s hands gorgeously, reminding us how important jazz influences were to classical composers in this era. Toradze’s playing danced off each note with ebullience but with a clarity of purpose that confounded any temptation to reduce the score to insouciance.»
The New Criterion Palm Beach, Paul du Quenoy