Concert Review: The Rush of Progress

Semyon Bychkov returns to the New York Philharmonic.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Conductor Semyon Bychkov returned to the New York Philharmonic this week.
Photo by Chris Lee © 2018 The New York Philharmonic.

Relationships between high-powered conductors and major orchestras can be a delicate thing. Which is why it was good this week to see the acclaimed Semyon Bychkov return to the podium at David Geffen Hall on Thursday night. This was the first concert in a two-week stand with the New York Philharmonic, which is in the last weeks of its season.

Concert Review: When Two Fifths Make a Whole

The NJSO plays Beethoven, Beethoven and Beethoven.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Piano man: Marc-Andre Hamelin in rehearsal.
Photo provided by Hemsing Associates.

Sometimes when you look over a chronological listing of an upcoming classical music season, it is common to circle a certain performance and make a note of its date. One such performance took place Sunday afternoon at NJPAC's Prudential Hall, where Jacques Lacombe and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra concluded their regular subscription season with a matinee concert focused exclusively on the music of Beethoven. (The orchestra has one more concert planned for next Sunday at NJPAC.)

Concert Review: The Crowd Pleasers

Maxim Vengerov at the New York Philharmonic.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Maxim Vengerov. Photo by Sheila Rock for Warner Brothers Classics.

A debut and a return were the story at the New York Philharmonic this week. Making his debut before a subscription audience was Long Yu, the Chinese maestro who leads three orchestras in that country. The return was that of violinist Maxim Vengerov, who had not played with the Philharmonic in nine years. His solo spotlight: the evergreen Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, an audience favorite that puts much of the burden squarely on the soloist's shoulders.

Concert Review: A Very Different Drummer

The New York Philharmonic completes its Nielsen cycle.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Alan Gilbert in flight. Photo by Chris Lee © 2014 The New York Philharmonic.

Carl Nielsen is Denmark’s most famous composer. His six symphonies are only occasionally encountered in the concert hall, odd and occasionally obtuse in their construction. At once too strange for the standard repertory and too conventional for the modernists of the 20th century, these works are beloved in Scandinavia and revered by fearless musicologists, conductors and audience members lucky enough to hear them played live.

Concert Review: The Sweltering Sky

The New York Philharmonic plays Central Park.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Fireworks over Central Park. From nyphil.tumblr.com.

The annual New York Philharmonic Concerts in the Park series is one of the orchestra's best marketing tools, a chance for New Yorkers to hear the city's oldest orchestra in a very public setting. This year, Alan Gilbert led the band in five such concerts, spreading the gospel of serious music to each of the five boroughs.

On Monday night, the Great Lawn of Central Park was covered with blankets, although this reporter was allowed in the up-close seats and experience the music directly from the stage. This program featured Dvorak's Cello Concerto with Philharmonic principal cellist Carter Brey and Tchaikovsky's muscular Fifth Symphony, an audience favorite. The weather was sweltering heat, an oppressive muggy pall that made water bottles and flapping programs a necessary evil for the assembled crowd. Mr. Gilbert conducted in shirt sleeves.

Concert Review: The Fifth Beat

The London Philharmonic Orchestra plays Avery Fisher Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Vladimir Jurowski looking particularly excited.
Photo by Chris Chrisodoulou © 2012 Chris Chrisodolou. 

Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is an important "statement" piece for any young conductor eager to cement his reputation as a maestro for the new millennium. So it makes sense that it was chosen by Vladimir Jurowski, the young Russian music director of the London Philharmonic Orchestra for Sunday’s matinee at Lincoln Center. Paired with it: the first Shostakovich Violin Concerto with soloist Vadim Repin. This was the first of two LPO concerts this week at Avery Fisher Hall.

Concert Review: Taking the Beethoven Cure

Christoph von Dohnányi returns to the New York Philharmonic.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Christoph von Dohnányi. Photo © Decca Classics/Universal Music Group.

When Beethoven's Fifth Symphony was first heard by a Vienna audience, it was on a freezing cold night in the Austrian capital and part of a four and a half hour concert that also featured the premiere of the Sixth. So perhaps it was fitting that temperatures outside Avery Fisher Hall were bitter cold on Friday night for an all-Beethoven concert at the New York Philharmonic.

The program started with Beethoven's Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus. The venerable Christoph von Dohnányi (he's 83 and vigorous) led this brief work with vigor, creating clean orchestral textures to support Beethoven's rhythms and melodic ideas. It was the epitome of this veteran conductor's style: every note of the work's architecture crisply played, clearly balanced and driven forward with firm purpose.

If Prometheus was the young Beethoven's first public success, then the Piano Concerto No. 1 cemented his reputation as a budding orchestral composer and piano soloist. Here, Mr. Dohnányi was joined by pianist Radu Lupu, the eminent Romanian virtuoso who applies his skills strictly to music of the Classical and early Romantic eras.

Concert Review: Taking the Fifth

Herbert Blomstedt conducts the New York Philharmonic.
by Paul Pelkonen

(Ed. Note: Superconductor reviews usually appear within 24 hours of attending a concert. Since I came down sick on Saturday afternoon, it's running now. Thanks for your patience.--P)

Conductor Herbert Blomstedt.
Photo by R. J. Muni.

The New York Philharmonic welcomed  Swedish conductor Herbert Blomstedt back to the podium of Avery Fisher Hall last week for a stellar program of Mozart and Tchaikovsky. 

A longtime presence at the San Francisco Symphony (where he served as music director for a decade), Mr. Blomstedt was born in the U.S. but grew up in Sweden. Now 85, his distinguished podium style features elegant, arching lyric lines and a brisk, business-like approach to making music. 

The concert opened with Mozart's Jeunehomme Concerto, led with a fine balance by soloist Garrick Ohlsson. Mr. Ohlsson, who looks more like a retired NFL tight end than an international concert pianist, played this music with a light touch that belied his big frame. 

Through the three movements, Mr. Ohlsson's big hands moved agilely, drawing out the playful aspects of the 21-year old Mozart's writing as well as the serious harmonic ideas that the composer would explore in operas like Idomeneo. Whether drawing sweet phrases in the slow movement or dazzling listeners with technical runs and arpeggiated figures in the finale, Mr. Ohlsson made the whole concerto look deceptively easy.

The Tchaikovsky Fifth stands at the center of the composer's late tryptich--a fate-driven work that draws inspiration from Beethoven as well as the composer's own lyric Russian style. It is also the most determinedly optimistic of these last three symphonies, standing between the tragic Fourth and the suicide note of the Pathetique.

Happily, this symphony is perfectly suited to the New York Philharmonic's strengths, a big, tempestuous work grounded around a motto theme. Sturdy brass playing--another specialty of this orchestra--is required. To all this, Mr. Blomstedt contributed propulsion, making the powerful motto theme dance where other conductors simply power ahead.

Mr. Blomstedt's leadership, expressive and vigorous without the benefit of a score, underlined the crucial relationship between the four movements of this symphony. In the Adagio, with its lonely horn-call that leads up to a huge climax, and in the courtly, almost rococo dance movement, the conductor underlined reappearance of the "motto" theme, showing the audience the coherent structure that Tchaikovsky was trying to achieve.

The conductor took an energetic approach to the finale, driving that famous march rhythm forward with a relentless, propulsive drive. Mr. Blomstedt also took the brief pause right before the coda very quickly. Some conductors pause too long, and an uninformed audience applauds too early. This performance brooked no such interruptions, ending in a powerful blaze of sound. 

Concert Review: La Nouvelle Baton

Stéphane Denève leads the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Not James Levine: Conductor Stéphane Denève.
Photo by Drew Farrell © 2011 IMG Artists.

On Friday night at Carnegie Hall, the venerable Boston Symphony Orchestra were led by a stockily built conductor with glasses and a great mass of frizzy hair.

No, it wasn't James Levine.

The conductor was Stéphane Denève, a French maestro who is among the parade of fine conductors that this orchestra has assembled following Mr. Levine's 2011 decision to step down as the BSO's music director. He is currently the head of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra. This concert marked Mr. Denève's Carnegie Hall debut.

The program (originally planned by Mr. Levine) presented a triptych of 20th century compositions. It opened with a  finely detailed account of Maurice Ravel's "Ma Mere L'Oye," a suite based on the children's tales of Mother Goose. The opening pages were played at a snail's pace, stretching the fine web of orchestral fabric into a lucid, gossamer sound.

Mr. Deneve focused on the detail and beauty of Ravel's orchestration, whether getting lost in the woods with Tom Thumb or exploring the courtship of Beauty and the Beast. By placing the basses on stage left, the conductor created a spatial effect between those instruments and the contrabassoon representing the Beast. The final Magic Garden opened with ethereal sounds in the strings and wind before rising to its climax on a mighty swell of sound.

The violins, violas and cellos left the stage for the Concerto for Piano and Winds, featuring soloist Peter Serkin. Mr. Serkin is a skilled interpreter of this music, and has been playing Stravinsky concertos with some regularity this season. Here, his steel-fingered approach to the music locked in with Mr. Deneve's conducting to create a tense, terse performance.

The energy of the Stravinsky piece carried into this performance of the Fifth Symphony by Dmitri Shostakovich. This is one of the composer's most enduring and popular works. And it should be: Shostakovich wrote it after an article in Pravda appeared attacking his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. The editorial was written in response to the opera, which had offended Josef Stalin.

The attack article appeared in January of 1936. Shostakovich had just finished his radical three-movement Fourth Symphony and had begun rehearsing the new work. Fearing for his life, the composer locked his new work away (it emerged in 1961) and set to work on the Fifth. The result is a conventional, but potent four-movement symphony on a huge scale: a concert hall favorite that allows a great orchestra to show its quality.

Mr. Denève brought a granite-like weight to the symphony, carving sturdy blocks of sound. In turn, they supported ornate sculptures of woodwind and strings. This is Shostakovich at his most tonal, moving between granite-like chords representing the heroism of the socialist struggle and stark, confessional passages, most notably a long, anguished Largo that allowed the composer to bare his soul for all the world to hear.

Under Mr. Denève, the Boston forces presented a powerful reading of this score, with tight rhythms, burly brass and respect for the complexity of the composer's musical vision. The French conductor was active on the podium, urging the heavy brass passages forward in the early passages and guiding the first violins with a crook of fingers or a "stop" gesture with his left hand. Tempos were leisurely in the slow movement, but the brassy finale had muscle and drive.

Concert Review: The Empty Podium

The Vienna Philharmonic plays Sibelius at Carnegie Hall.
by Paul Pelkonen.

The Vienna Philharmonic at a concert in Berkeley, California in 2011.
Photo by Terry Linke © University of California at Berkeley.

The Vienna Philharmonic played the first of three New York concerts on Friday night. The venerable orchestra is currently touring with conductor Lorin Maazel, who, at 82, is celebrating a 50-year association with the orchestra that started with a performance of Beethoven's Fidelio in 1962.

Friday's program was one of Mr. Maazel's specialties: three symphonies by Jean Sibelius. Mr. Maazel has been conducting the symphonies of Finland's national composer for over half a century. He's also recorded the cycle twice: once with the Vienna forces and again with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. So it was somewhat surprising that these interpretations were missing the qualities of fire and emotion that are needed in the performance of these great works.

The program went chronologically backward, starting with the Seventh Symphony. This was the last of the composer's completed symphonies (an Eighth may have existed, but was probably destroyed), a condensedwork that packs all the development and ideas of four movements into a concise twenty minutes. Although the Vienna players brought warm string tone, searching woodwinds and their trademark horn sound to its pages, the Seventh sounded curiously workmanlike and uninspired.

The same problems plagued the first two movements of the Fifth: gorgeous playing that suffered from uninspiring leadership. This was particularly apparent in the central Andante. Matters improved considerably in the finale, driven by a bell-like, tolling figure in the horns that alternates with a sprightly woodwind melody. The best part: an eloquent, emotional statement in the cellos that was played with sentiment and warmth.

The second half of the concert featured the First Symphony, one of Sibelius' longest and most challenging pieces. It opens with a long clarinet cadenza, where the conductor stands with his arms down, mute before bringing in the whole orchestra. Mr. Maazel stood there, at rest, waiting for the solo to wind to its end. 

Then, his arms lifted. The white baton came up. And then the weird thing happened: the orchestra made its entry, but their timing had little to do with Mr. Maazel's. The principals of the four main string sections (first and second violins, violas and cellos), were working off each other, making eye contact and giving silent cues as they played through the piece. Nobody was looking at the conductor.

The phenomenon extended to other sections of the orchestra. Eyes fixed on their sheet music, the tuxedoed Vienna players were playing on orchestral auto-pilot, making use of their experience and ability to get through the four movements of the symphony. And for the most part, this trick (if it was one) worked.  . The orchestra's sound quality was gorgeous, worthy of their stellar reputation and world-wide fame. But throughout the First Symphony, it felt like the concert was being led from the first chairs, and not by Mr. Maazel.

Contact the author: E-mail Superconductor editor Paul Pelkonen.

Concert Review: The Burly Show

Alan Gilbert works out the New York Philharmonic.

"And turn! And bend! And flex! And play!" Conductor Alan Gilbert.
Photo by Chris Lee © 2011 The New York Philharmonic.

On Wednesday night, Alan Gilbert led the New York Philharmonic in three sturdy modern works. Composer-in-residence Magnus Lindberg's Feria was followed by the Second Piano Concerto of Bela Bártok with soloist Lang Lang. Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony, a steely-eyed product of his second Soviet period brought the evening to a loud close.

Mr. Lindberg's piece is a sort of orchestral carnival, with many of the musical ideas that have become familiar to New Yorkers over the three years of his residency. A ringing trumpet figure is followed by nervous, chivvying figures in the strings, and complex percussion parts. The orchestra incorporates unusual "found" objects. There is a percussion part for a suspended spring coil, and prominent use of piano. But what made this 17-minute piece work was an eloquent main theme, and a slow central section with subtle references to the Renaissance music of Claudio Monteverdi.

A lengthy pause before the Bartók concerto saw the Philharmonic reconfigured in an unfamiliar way. The entire brass were moved all the way to stage right, with the woodwinds sitting in front along the lip of the stage. The first violins occupied the center of the stage behind the piano. Since Bartók's composition omits strings in the first movement, and mutes the brass in the second. this divided seating seating made musical sense. 

Lang Lang is known for his Liszt, but here he showed no fear in taking on the technically challenging (and at one point in the second movement, unplayable) music of the other famous Hungarian composer. Mr. Lang brought an energetic, driving presence to the piano part, playing the staccato notes from the shoulder and pounding the keys with drill-bit precision. For the elegant glissando runs up the keyboard, his left hand would hover in the air, playing its own, invisible part before crashing down to continue the piece. Mr. Gilbert and his orchestra provided sturdy accompaniment.

Written in 1944, Prokofiev's Fifth is one of his more popular works, heard frequently when there's a large orchestra that has a tuba player with serious lung power. The symphony anticipates the forthcoming Russian victory over the Nazis. It represents a sort of high point in the composer's return to the Soviet Union, a high that would not last as the following Sixth drew the wrath of Stalin's censors.

Mr. Gilbert chose a broadly spaced interpretation. It featured strong playing from the Philharmonic brass, now returned to their customary stage left position. Across a broad sonic bridge built by the strings, the brass players duelled with Prokofiev's pounding percussion, producing a stirring first movement. This is the kind of music this orchestra plays very well, and they charged ahead like a Soviet armored division.

Opening with a bubbly clarinet theme, the Scherzo sprang to vivid life, evoking a Stalinist utopia with just a hint of Russian sarcasm underneath the rhythms. The second slow movement (which shares material with the composer's Cinderella ballet.) Most impressive was the inexorable crescendo, building to a slow, heavy climax that seemed to roll over the listener like a May Day tank.

The finale (opening with the same bassoon theme as the first movement) drove the whole conception home. The most memorable thing about this last movement is a prominent percussion part, led by the echoing "thok, thok, thock" of the wood block. But that's not the conductor's fault. 

Recordings Review: Breakfast With Carlos

Carlos Kleiber's Beethoven Fifth and Seventh.
By Paul Pelkonen.

A rare conductor: the great Carlos Kleiber at work.

For me, 2012 began with the Vienna Philharmonic. Not at their annual concert in the Musikverein, but in my own Brooklyn living room through a nice pair of 40mm SkullCandy headphones. I've been in a long process of cleaning and organizing my CD collection, sorting through piles of discs that I hadn't had time (for whatever reason) to put back into their proper cases or envelopes.

The benefit of that admitted carelessness on my part was that I found my rarely played copy of Beethoven's Fifth and Seventh Symphonies, featuring the Vienna Philharmonic under the baton of Carlos Kleiber. This is a legendary pair of recordings, made in 1974 (the Fifth) and 1976 (the Seventh.) My copy came in a boxed set with the rest of Mr. Kleiber's Deutsche Grammophon recordings, all of which fit on only 12 discs. (For the record, the set has three complete operas, a Brahms Fourth, and two Schubert symphonies. Not exactly prolific.)

Who was Carlos Kleiber? He was a German conductor of Austrian birth, and the son of another famous maestro, Erich Kleiber. (The elder Kleiber led the world premiere of Wozzeck. Although the second-generation conductor started strong, holding a post in Stuttgard and appearing frequently in Munich, he became a hushed, mysterious figure. After conducting at Bayreuth, the Vienna State Opera, and several times at the Met, he gradually withdrew from the spotlight. 

In 1989, Mr. Kleiber turned down the covered position of Music Director of the Berlin Philharmonic after Herbert von Karajan died. In his later years, performances were less frequent, and he made only a handful of official recordings, all for Deutsche Grammophon. 

So is this Beethoven really that good? Does it deserve that legendary status?

Yes, it is, and it does. On these recordings, the sound qualities that have made the Vienna Philharmonic one of the world's greatest orchestra leap forth with great clarity and purpose, as the players respond willingly to his baton. The unique instruments of the VPO, particularly the oboes, horns and timpani have a more eloquent, conversational quality, giving a period-performance sheen to these readings long before conductors and record companies popularized the idea of using so-called "original instruments."

These qualities are best heard in the Viennese oboes, which are wider and have a slightly different, more conversational tone quality than the more commonly used French instruments. Conversely, the Viennese horns have a narrower bore and a unique valve system that makes these instruments sound with a dark, rich sonority that is this orchestra's trademark. This horn tone is especially clear in the finale to the Fifth, when the instruments lead the composer's triumph over adversity.

The strings seem to breathe the opening of the second movement, leading up to a huge series of repeated climaxes. The third movement, with its ostinato  and funeral march, builds up to hard timpani strikes and an exuberant celebration in sound from the brass choir, answered by the low strings. The whole ensemble joins in a hymn of man overcoming fate. 

The Seventh is equally powerful, its introduction gathering momentum, taking a huge breath before the orchestra starts what Wagner called the "apotheosis of the dance." These wild celebrations shimmer and whirl in a Dionysian frenzy, releasing pent-up tension in the strings and horns. The famous slow movement, with its insistent ostinato drives forward with inexorable power, building to further celebrations in the last two movements.

Mr. Kleiber's contribution is not any special trick of rubato or tempo changes. In fact his conducting  is fairly consistent with other maestros. But what he is skilled at is building, maintaining and releasing orchestral momentum, and forging the sections of the orchestra into cohesive units of sound. This quality comes out in the woodwind-playing and the strings. The conductor brings the flute, oboes and clarinets together to create a massive sound that recalls a fine pipe-organ in its simple majesty.

If you've never heard these recordings, do yourself a favor. Their reputation is deserved.

Contact the author: E-mail Superconductor editor Paul Pelkonen.

CD Review: Sibelius, Distilled

The Second, Fifth Symphonies in piano transcription.

Flying Finn: pianist Henri Sigfridsson.
Photo by Marco Borggreve. © 2011 Henri Sigfridsson/Ondine Classics.

The difficult art of turning a full orchestral symphony into a bravura work for solo piano is most often associated with the composer-pianist Franz Liszt, who transcribed the nine Beethoven symphonies into finger-busting exercises in order to please his public and publishers.

On this new disc, pianist Henri Sigfridsson chose two of Sibelius' seven symphonies: the Second and the Fifth. In the case of each work, the results make for compelling listening. This is the Finnish pianist's second disc of piano transcriptions of Sibelius works. (An earlier release on Hanssler Classics features some of the composer's tone poems and incidental music.)


Hearing a symphonic score rebuilt for the piano often allows the listener to experience fresh details of tone and color that may be obscured by the wash of strings or the stentorian force of brass. For Sibelius, whose compositional style is focused on simplicity and clarity, the transcription process sharpens each musical idea to a diamond edge.

In the case of the Second, (one of Sibelius' more optimistic symphonies) the whole first movement is built around a stuttering figure in the left hand and an answering folk-dance played with the right. The naturalistic rhythms of the symphony spring to life across the piano keyboard, as Mr. Sigfridsson plays the transcription with taut rhythms and attention to the key details in the score.

The middle movements of this symphony detail Finland's struggle for independence. Mr. Sigfridsson plays the halting cello figures of the slow movement with his left hand, interjecting alarums with his right as the Russian armies approach. The optimistic 14-minute finale is the most difficult to bring off, but this skilled piansit makes it work.

The Fifth Symphony is even more interesting, with the famous "ringing horns" of the last movement sounding forth in the bass notes of the piano, held down with careful use of the sustain pedal to recreate the original, antiphonal effect. Mr. Sigfridsson's transcription addsa uniform, almost Bach-like effect, as the noble themes sound forth.

These Sibelius transcriptions exhibit a very different style than the flashy concert works of the 19th century. Great attention is paid to inflection of the notes, to replicate a wind instrument, a rampart of brass, or a conductor siezed in the orgiastic waves of sound used to depict the rising Finnish people or the frozen tundras of Lapland. The result is wonderfully refreshing to the ears: great music stripped down to its barest essence.