The Georgian Philharmonic Orchestra entered its centenary evening with the assurance of an ensemble that understands its past as a living organism rather than a museum relic. The program—Beethoven, Grieg, Respighi—formed an arc of ceremonial radiance, pianistic drama, and symphonic technicolor. In the hands of Carlo Ponti and the orchestra, this arc gained a narrative pulse that moved through the hall with the clarity of a seasoned storyteller.
Beethoven’s overture carries the structural weight of a temple being erected in sound. Ponti approached its opening with an austere clarity that foregrounded the harmonic scaffolding. The slow introduction breathed with a deliberate amplitude; each chord sounded like an engraved block lowered into place. As the Allegro unfolded, the orchestra moved into a sharply articulated rhythmic engine. The counterpoint shimmered with a Baroque lustre that Beethoven elevates into monumental symphonic rhetoric. The Georgian Philharmonic’s winds brought a resin-bright timbre, while the brass section shaped its interjections with sculptural precision. The coda arrived with a blaze of orchestral symmetry that filled the hall with a sense of architectural wholeness—a collective exhale after a carefully wrought edifice rose before the audience.
Dudana Mazmanishvili approached Grieg’s concerto with an inner luminosity that shaped the work’s well-known gestures into a personal ritual. The opening chords landed as broad strokes of energy; her touch exhibited the mixture of strength and suppleness found in pianists who understand the concerto as a dialogue conducted through color. Her phrasing in the first movement navigated the oscillation between impetuous cascades and introspective lyricism with an unbroken narrative thread. The cadenza revealed her instinct for vertical clarity: harmonies unfolded with crystalline balance, each arpeggio shaped as a micro-architecture of tension and release.
The Adagio carried an almost vocal line. Mazmanishvili sculpted the melody with the tenderness of a lieder singer, allowing the orchestra’s strings to envelop her with a velvet sheen. Ponti kept the accompaniment transparent, which allowed the piano’s harmonic inflections to breathe with organic subtlety. The finale burst forth with a spring-like propulsion. The rhythmic character—part dance, part declaration—grew through tightly coordinated exchanges between piano and orchestra. Her final ascent radiated a sense of grounded exhilaration, a glow that lingered long after the applause began.
Respighi’s Roman triptych requires an orchestra capable of cinematic breadth and chamber-like sensitivity. The Georgian Philharmonic answered with a palette of sound that revealed the work’s atmospheric logic. “Pines of the Villa Borghese” opened with near-kinetic brilliance. The woodwinds captured the brightness of children’s games through agile motifs, while the strings produced a glimmering texture that circled through Respighi’s rhythmic cells. “Pines Near a Catacomb” shifted the hall into a cavernous resonance. The low brass carried a grave, devotional timbre; the harmonic motion felt suspended, as if each chord were carved from volcanic stone. Ponti’s pacing invited the listener into a slow descent, offering a sense of history embedded within the orchestral sonority.
In “The Pines of the Janiculum,” the clarinet solo became a point of illumination. Its line floated across a delicate web of strings and celesta, forming an aural mirage. The nightingale recording emerged with a spectral elegance, merging technology and orchestration into a single poetic gesture. The final movement—“The Pines of the Appian Way”—created an ascent of tectonic force. The distant, steady tread of the opening built through meticulously layered brass entries. The Georgian Philharmonic achieved a resonance that seemed to expand the physical boundaries of the hall. The climax surged with a triumphal amplitude that honored both the work’s monumental imagery and the orchestra’s centenary stature.
This concert formed an essential chapter in the Georgian Philharmonic’s 100th-anniversary narrative. The partnership between Ponti and the orchestra emerged as a central expressive force of the evening. The night unfolded as a study in orchestral identity and artistic maturity: Beethoven’s architectural radiance, Grieg’s lyric expansiveness, and Respighi’s cinematic breadth converged into a program that honored a century of musical life in Georgia.
Review by Ivan Nechaev
