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New York Philharmonic Plays Modern Classics
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 15 January 2024 16:09
- Written by Jack Angstreich
Jakub Hrůša conducts the New York Philharmonic
At Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall on Friday, January 12th, I had the privilege of attending a splendid concert—continuing a superb season—presented by the New York Philharmonic, here under the exciting direction of the impressive Czech guest conductor, Jakub Hrůša.
The event began brilliantly with a sterling rendition of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s marvelous Ballade for Orchestra. The celebrated soloist Hilary Hahn then entered the stage for a dazzling performance of Sergei Prokofiev’s extraordinary Violin Concerto No. 1, which is the basis for Jerome Robbins’s memorable ballet, Opus 19 / The Dreamer and was one of the only works by the composer admired by his eminent contemporary, Igor Stravinsky. In his useful note for the program, James M. Keller records that:
This concerto traces its origins to a Concertino for Violin that Prokofiev had begun in 1915 but left incomplete. Some material for that earlier work ended up in his first Violin Concerto, which in any case adheres to modest proportions. (It retained its deceptively “early” opus number from the projected Concertino.)
In his “Short Autobiography” of 1941, Prokofiev commented on five dimensions of his style, including the fourth, the lyrical strain in his œuvre, of which he characterized this concerto as representative:
The fourth line is lyrical: it appears first as a thoughtful and meditative mood, not always associated with melody, or at any rate with long melody (“Fairy Tale” in the Four Pieces for Piano Op. 3, Dreams, Autumnal, the songs Op. 9, the “Legend” Op. 12), sometimes partly contained in long melody (the two Balmont choruses, the beginning of the First Violin Concerto, the songs to Akhmatova's poems, Grandmother's Tales). This line was not noticed until much later. For a long time I was given no credit for any lyrical gift whatever, and for want of encouragement it developed slowly. But as time went on I gave more attention to this aspect of my work.
The largely meditative and quirky initial movement has an uncharacteristic prettiness but also a certain solemnity. About the arresting, even more eccentric second movement, the former New York Philharmonic Program Annotator Michael Steinberg, in his book The Concerto, wrote:
a scherzo marked vivacissimo represented the “savage” element as against the generally more lyrical first and third movements. The music, full of contrast, is by turns amusing, naughty, for a while even malevolent, athletic, and always violinistically ingenious and brilliant. It seems to be over in a moment.
The movement is virtuosic, propulsive, fittingly playful, but with abrasive elements. The finale is the most beautiful and song-like of the movements—but with passages of contrasting urgency, although some parts have an almost pastoral or even celestial character—and it ends quietly. Hahn returned to play an exquisite encore: the amazing Andante from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Violin Sonata No. 2 in A minor, BWV 1003, a work which she has recorded.
The second half of the concert was at least equally admirable, consisting of a terrific version of Béla Bartók’s incomparable Concerto for Orchestra. The composer provided the following remarks upon it:
The title of this symphony-like orchestral work is explained by its tendency to treat single orchestral instruments in a concertante or soloistic manner. The “virtuoso” treatment appears, for instance, in the fugato sections of the development of the first movement (brass instruments), or in the perpetuum mobile–like passage of the principal theme in the last movement (strings), and especially in the second movement, in which pairs of instruments consecutively appear with brilliant passages.
He also said:
The general mood of the work represents, apart from the jesting second movement, a gradual transition from the sternness of the first movement and the lugubrious death-song of the third to the life-assertion of the last one.
The introductory movement begins gravely, even ominously, becoming unexpectedly dramatic but with some mysterious interludes and, like the other movements, finishes abruptly. The more unusual second movement—titled Game of Couples—is ludic, even at times jocose, but with some serious elements, closing softly. The suspenseful Elegia that ensues is more uncanny in atmosphere, preceding the enchanting fourth movement which has humorous, almost cartoonish, interruptions. The energetic, ebullient Finale has great forward momentum but with some more subdued interludes; as it approaches its end, the music acquires a ghostly character, then concludes stunningly. The artists deservedly received a very enthusiastic ovation.
January '24 Digital Week I
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Thursday, 11 January 2024 00:42
- Written by Kevin Filipski
New York Philharmonic Perform Wagner, Beethoven & Brahms
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Tuesday, 09 January 2024 15:04
- Written by Jack Angstreich
Jaap van Zweden leads the New York Philharmonic with soloist Rudolf Buchbinder at David Geffen Hall. Photo by Chris Lee
At Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall on the afternoon of Friday, January 5th, I had the pleasure of attending an excellent concert—continuing a strong season —presented by the New York Philharmonic, conducted by its Music Director, Jaap van Zweden.
The program opened brilliantly with what may have been its highlight, a sterling account of Richard Wagner’s glorious Prelude to Act I of his magnificent opera, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. The celebrated virtuoso, Rudolf Buchbinder, then joined the artists for a marvelous performance—with him playing the composer’s own cadenzas—of Ludwig van Beethoven’s extraordinary Piano Concerto No. 4. The initial Allegro moderato movement begins with a brief, meditative introduction—with proto-Mendelssohnian qualities—and a reflective mood is sustained throughout, although balanced by both playful and dramatic elements. The ensuing Andante con moto is more solemn and inward and almost avant-garde at one point; in contrast, the finale, marked Vivace, is ebullient on the whole, but with both suspenseful and lyrical passages.
The second half of the event was also remarkable, an admirable realization of the beautiful Symphony No. 4 of Johannes Brahms. The first—Allegro non troppo—movement is melodious, deeply Romantic in inspiration, and almost dance-like at times. Much of the succeeding, graceful Andante moderato is affirmative, if more interior in orientation, but also with more robust episodes, while the scherzo that follows, with a tempo of Allegro giocoso, is exuberant, even rambunctious. The memorable finale for many measuresis surprisingly subdued but closes triumphantly. The ensemble, deservedly, was enthusiastically applauded.
Juilliard Orchestra Performs Bruckner at Lincoln Center
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Thursday, 04 January 2024 20:40
- Written by Jack Angstreich
Photo by Claudio Papapietro.
At Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, on the evening of Monday, December 11th, I had the considerable privilege to attend a superb concert—it was an excellent performance of Anton Bruckner’s titanic, glorious Symphony No. 8—presented by the impressive musicians of the Juilliard Orchestra under the outstanding direction of guest conductor, Donald Runnicles.
The symphony is Bruckner’s last completed one. Exceptionally helpful notes for this program were produced by Thomas May who “is the English-language editor for the Lucerne Festival and writes about the arts for a wide variety of publications. His books include Decoding Wagner and The John Adams Reader.” He provides some useful background on this Bruckner masterpiece:
When it was premiered in December 1892, accord- ing to the scholar Benjamin Korstvedt, the Eighth “marked a turning point” in the cultural war between conservatives and the faction that proclaimed Bruckner to be Beethoven’s legitimate heir: “While the concert did not wholly win over Bruckner’s antagonists, it did seem to convince them that, if nothing else, Bruckner had finally secured a lasting place as a symphonist.”
The annotator cites the comment of Robert Simpson, author of The Essence of Bruckner, that “The sweeping dramatic force of the Eighth is almost new in Bruckner.” May adds about the composer:
He was 60 when he began composing it in 1884. The triumphant premiere of the Seventh seemed a long-overdue vindication, a signal that the tide of public opinion had finally shifted in his favor. After three years of labor, Bruckner was eager to show the freshly completed score of the Eighth to Hermann Levi, the eminent first conductor ofParsifal. Levi had helped champion the Seventh, and his opinion mattered greatly to Bruckner. But the Eighth perplexed Levi— another clue as to how different this music is from what preceded it.
Levi’s rejection devastated Bruckner. The composer responded by making radical revisions to the original score he had completed in 1887. This later version, prepared in 1890, was the basis for the first publication as well as the premiere in 1892, which took place in Vienna under the Wagnerian conductor Hans Richter. The extent to which Bruckner’s well-meaning but intrusive assistants imposed their own revisions on this later version—attempting to tailor Bruckner’s conception to contemporary taste—is among the complications subsequent editors have had to address.
Another issue has to do with the composer’s own attitude toward the 1890 revisions, which involved several cuts, some rewriting, and an expanded woodwind section. While the revision improved certain aspects of the music as a whole, some scholars have regretted the cuts that were made, citing them as an example of Bruckner acting against his own better judgment, still shaken as he was by Levi’s rejection.
May quotes the editor of the version played at this concert:
Yet, wrote Leopold Nowak in the preface to his edition of the 1890 version, which he published in 1955—and which we hear in this performance led by Donald Runnicles—“a complete critical edition must not mix its sources: The result would be a score that would not tally with either version and would certainly not be in accordance with Bruckner’s wishes.” The composer’s acceptance of “other people’s opinions,” adds Nowak, “does not warrant ignoring alterations in Bruckner’s own hand.”
The initial movement, marked Allegro moderato, has a solemn, portentous introduction, but the emergence of a lyrical—even pastoral—theme alters the mood; a Wagneriangrandeuris intermittently attained and the movement closes quietly. May remarks that “Bruckner’s 1890 revision underlines the sense of despair, dispensing with the heavy-handed proclamation that originally ended the movement,” and that the composer called this revision the “Death Watch.”
On the next movement, the annotator has this to say:
For the first time in his symphonies, Bruckner positions his Scherzo second in order. Simpson famously compared the mechanistic regularity of its main theme to “the constant thud of a colossal celestial engine beyond even Milton’s imagining.” Bruckner’s manic repetitions at times seem to anticipate aspects of Minimalism. The slower trio introduces another “first time” in Bruckner’s symphonies—the presence of harps [ . . . . ]
The movement, also anAllegro moderato,begins excitingly and is frequently suspenseful and builds to a thrilling finish; the contrasting Trio section provides glimpses of a celestial innocence but does not seem entirely free from an uncharacteristic irony even if this is not inappropriate in ascherzo.
May describes the third movement thus:
Set in D-flat Major, the vast Adagio seems at first to promise peace, yet much of it is imbued with an unexpected yearning. The opening gesture—a slowly syncopated pattern in the low strings—alludes to the “Night of Love” music from the second act ofTristan und Isolde. Yet Bruckner’s sensibility lies worlds apart from Wagner’s.
The movement has an unexpected intensity, almost Mahlerian at moments, but with some reflective passages, although it is nonetheless dramatic at times and here as well there are heavenly intimations. May records that “Following a powerful climax, Bruckner brings the Adagio to a close with a spacious coda.”
The finale opens exhilaratingly but then alternates with music of a sometimes more meditative quality until it reaches an astonishing, fugue-like conclusion.
The musicians deservedly received an enthusiastic ovation.
