The Austin Symphony Orchestra’s (ASO) closing concert at Riverbend, their temporary home, featured an all-French program highlighting soloist André Watts in Saint-Saens’ Piano Concerto No. 2.

This was certainly Watts at his best! Technically thrilling! Full of intensity and personality without being vulgar or self-indulgent!

I have followed Watts’ career since he first appeared with Bernstein on a televised Young People’s Concert with the New York Philharmonic. Although his repertoire still appears to be limited, everything he plays is dazzling and joyous.

Watts and conductor Peter Bay worked well together. While the Saint-Saens concerto is far from profound, it is pianistically effective and tuneful, and well worth a revival for a virtuoso of the old school such as Watts.

Debussy’s La Mer was the major orchestral work. It is far more difficult for the orchestra than the Saint-Saens but Peter Bay had the measure of it and his players responded well.

Good conducting and playing, however, cannot rescue works such as Francaix’ The Flower Clock and Roussel’s Suite in F Op. 33; these are both second-rate pieces. Better choices could have been made – Roussel’s Third or Fourth Symphony, for example.

Not only the program choices, but also the order of the program baffled me: Francaix/Roussel/Intermission/Saint-Saens/Debussy. It might have been more logical to have the Saint-Saens at the end of the first half, followed by the Debussy on its own in the second half.

La Mer is a solid masterpiece but coming right after Watts in the Saint-Saens, it seemed an anti-climax. In a revised program, the Francaix might have passed muster as an opener followed by the Saint-Saens, but to follow it with another lightweight piece like the Roussel gave us too much music of questionable quality.

The final concerts of this ASO season will be at Long Center, the symphony’s new home.

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