Last week, I got a message from a musician friend from college who grew up in Boston but now lives out of town, asking if I was going to the upcoming Boston Symphony Orchestra’s concert. “I know this concert is kind of a chestnut program,” he began, “but honestly the Mozart and Schumann are two of my faves so I’m stoked.”
Friday afternoon at Symphony Hall, his enthusiasm for Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 and Schumann’s Symphony No. 2 was rewarded as BSO assistant conductor Earl Lee, pianist Eric Lu, and the orchestra together proved that chestnuts never need to be flavorless.
The Mozart concerto has been a repertoire fixture for longer than the BSO has existed. This orchestra first performed it just a few years after its founding, and the soloist was none other than Amy Beach, then an 18-year-old newlywed. The list of subsequent soloists includes a who’s who of thoughtful luminaries of the keyboard: Murray Perahia, András Schiff, Mitsuko Uchida, Radu Lupu, Emanuel Ax. Making his BSO debut, the Bedford-born pianist added himself to that list by sending the warhorse concerto for a romp through the wildflowers.
Through the piece, Lu’s tack was delicate and graceful but not overly dainty. His accents were buoyant with his phrases well-defined and sculpted, and in the piano’s low range, he generated a sound that was muscular without being hamfisted. The solo truly sang in the almost parodically pastoral Romance of the second movement, floating on top of the translucent orchestral backdrop.
Upon being cued out for a third bow after the piece, the grinning conductor followed the soloist out and took a seat in the back of the orchestra to watch the encore, an unhurried and dreamy tour through Chopin’s well-loved Waltz in C# minor. It was an exquisite calling card from Lu, who first appeared on the world scene after being honored at 2015′s Chopin International Competition. Going by the buzz in the hallways at intermission, I’m not the only one who would love to hear him play more Chopin, or more anything.
The concerto was preceded by the program’s only non-chestnut, Unsuk Chin’s brief and arresting “subito con forza.” Composed in 2020 as a tribute to Beethoven, with several noticeable shout-outs embedded in the music, the instrumentation is also nearly identical to Beethoven’s typical symphonic cohort. Clearly, its ideal place is as a prelude to a Beethoven symphony, and it would have fit better in the second half before the Schumann symphony instead of in the first before the concerto, which meant that the stage had to be cleared for the piano to be set up — a process that took nearly as long as Chin’s piece itself.
Schumann’s “Spring” Symphony was his Symphony No. 1, not No. 2, but Friday’s performance of that Symphony No. 2 celebrated the season in its own way, brimming with vitality. The piece has been in the BSO catalog even longer than the Mozart concerto, having been performed during the orchestra’s first ever season, and Lee let the music breathe. The energy of the first movement seemed to channel the frenzied two weeks in which the composer wrote most of the music. The second movement was exceptionally well shaped; the strings never sounded pushed or dry in the busy Scherzo, and the Trio sounded just as fresh. In my mind’s eye, I saw ballet dancers overrun the stage, improbably leaping through the chairs.
Lee’s contract with the BSO was recently extended through the 2023-24 season, and based on both this performance and his appearance last summer at Tanglewood, I’ll be watching his career with interest.
BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
At Symphony Hall. Friday, April 7
Because of a reporting error, a previous version of this article misstated the length of BSO assistant conductor Earl Lee’s scheduled term. Lee’s contract was extended to the 2023-24 season.
A.Z. Madonna can be reached at az.madonna@globe.com. Follow her @knitandlisten.