Concert Review: Rising in the East (but not too early)

A morning matinée at the New York Philharmonic.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

A man and a water tower: David Robertson returned to New York this week.
Photo by Chris Lee © 2018 The New York Philharmonic.

One could not help but notice, walking into David Geffen Hall on Friday afternoon, that there were some empty seats. These were more noticeable because they had little envelopes taped to them, presumably gifts for subscribers coming to the first Friday morning program of the 2018 season. However, as this concert started with new music, the conservative types who make the biggest Philharmonic contributions were (as is their wont) late to arrive.  Here, conductor David Robertson opened with a performance of another major work by contemporary composer Louis Andriessen, the Dutch composer whose receipt of the 2016 Kravis Prize for new music has led to an in-depth Philharmonic exploration of his catalogue.

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. 

Maurizio Pollini Cancels Concerts

Garrick Ohlsson, Louis Lortie, Maria João Pires to step in at Carnegie Hall.
by Paul Pelkonen

Maurizio Pollini lights up in London.
 Perhaps he heard about Mayor Bloomberg's smoking ban?

Breaking news from the Carnegie Hall press office: Italian virtuoso pianist Maurizio Pollini has been forced to cancel all of his planned spring appearances due to illness. This includes both recitals at Carnegie Hall, and a series of May concerts in New York and Philadelphia with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

This is the second year in a row that Mr. Pollini has been forced to cancel his U.S. obligations. A similar announcement appeared in the New York Times in March of last year. A set of concerts with the Philadelphia Orchestra has also been nixed.

Mr. Pollini will be replaced for the April 29 concert by American soloist Garrick Ohlsson, who has agreed to do an all-Liszt recital at the Sunday afternoon concert. This will be the second such program by Mr. Ohlsson in New York this year. A review of the artist's  January recital at the 92nd St. Y is here on Superconductor.

For the May 6 performance, Canadian pianist Louis Lortie will play two sonatas by Beethoven (the Waldstein and Les Adieux) and a selection of Chopin.

At the May 18 concert at Carnegie Hall, Mr. Pollini's substitute will be the award-winning Portuguese pianist Maria João Pires. Ms. Pires will play the Second Chopin Piano Concerto, accompanied by Charles Dutoit and the Philadelphia Orchestra. This concert is part of an ongoing celebration of Mr. Dutoit's tenure with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He is stepping down at the end of this season to make way for incoming music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

Concert Review: Giant vs. Patriot

Garrick Ohlsson plays Liszt.

Piano reflections: Garrick Ohlsson.

On Sunday afternoon, piano lovers took a break from the NFL playoffs to see the piano giant Garrick Ohlsson do battle with the Hungarian patriot Franz Liszt at the 92nd St. Y. Mr. Ohlsson offered a program displaying stunning technique, split between familiar, but challenging works and serious examples of the composer's catalogue. 

Mr. Ohlsson is a formidibale artist who cemented his reputation recording the complete works of Liszt's friend Chopin. In turning to the flashier Liszt, he brings that same sense of sober, scholarly reconsideration to this music.

Liszt was the masters of the art of transcription, writing over 200 piano pieces adapted from orchestral music, songs, or other instruments. Fittingly, the concert opened with his piano version of Bach's Fantasia and Fugue in G minor.

This one of Bach's greatest organ works, a vast exploration of the cosmos through the complexity of figured bass. Mr. Ohlsson leant on his sustain pedal to create the ringing, overlapping sounds of Bach's organ. He then lifted his massive right foot for the fugue, playing with the delicate lines with a light touch that belied the complex sounds that blossomed forth as the work came to its climax.

Inspired by Schubert's Wanderer-Fantasie, Liszt's Sonata in B Minor revolutionized the form by condensing four movements into one.  Mr. Ohlsson used tremendous hand and wrist control to explore its complexities. The last two movements, a harrowing ride into the piano's minor-key bass register was followed by a slow elevation to the more "blessed" upper regions of the keyboard.

The second half of the concert featured four of Liszt's most compelling virtuoso pieces, displaying different aspects of both the soloist and instrument. As the recital progressed, it was clear that Mr. Ohlsson was presenting these four works as a kind of pastiche sonata, a mega-work for keyboard on a massive scale.

Les jeux d'eaux à la Villa d'Este is from the third book of Années de la pèlerinage, an expansion that Liszt wrote late in his life. It points the way towards Debussy and Ravel. Feux follets is fiendishly difficult, demanding fast, light playing from the soloist. The opening pages contain (among other things) the inspiration for the bells from Wagner's Parsifal.

This "mega-sonata" concluded with another devilishly challenging work, the Mephisto Waltz No. 1. Based on an episode from Nicholas Lenau's Faust, the Waltz recreates dancing villagers and the devil's fiddle from that legend. The staccato rhythms with great control, giving way to virtuoso runs that seemed to explode from the lid of the piano.

One encore was offered: the searching, inpressionistic Klavierstücke in A. These floating, fragmented melodies were played with restraint and beautiful tone. This rarely heard abstraction showed that even in his last years, Franz Liszt still pointed the way forward.

Concert Review: Taking on the Titans

The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall

Mr. Congenial: Garrick Ohlsson returned to Carnegie Hall
as soloist with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

Robert Spano brought the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra to Carnegie Hall on Saturday night with a challenging program featuring new music from composer/conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, followed by two works by Scriabin and Rachmaninoff. These late Russian Romantics, while very different musically, were classmates at the same conservatory.

The concert opened with the New York premiere of Nyx a large-scale orchestral work. Mr. Salonen wove a complex, yet clear fabric from gleaming melodic threads. The clarinet and horns tossed the main theme back and forth over a roil of sound. The music became menacing and monolithic, with bold brass writing and innovative percussion making a rich sonic experience. Predictably, it was met with polite applause. 

Although Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy premiered in New York in 1908, it remains an obscure example of late Russian romanticism. Scriabin used an unusual harmonic language in this late piece. By choosing to substitute the dissonant interval of a harmonic fourth for the usual, more tonal fifth, he created a dissonant sound-world, very much his own.

This challenging score was presented with playing of the highest caliber. Concertmaster David Coucheron unleashed the shimmering first theme, answered by a clarion call in the expanded brass section. The eight horns formed a phalanx in the orchestra, leading the charge up the score's dizzying heights. Robert Spano drove the work home, bringing in the tuba and organ to anchor an orgiastic swirl of sound. The meaning of the work may have died with Scriabin, but its impact was deeply felt.

The audience seemed happier about the second half of the program: Rachmaninoff's familiar, though fearsomely difficult Piano Concerto No. 3, featuring soloist Garrick Ohlsson. Its three movements are like that old Atari game "Pitfall!"--one wrong move and the soloist will never be heard from again.

Pitfall Harry (on rope, right) may well have understood the dangers of playing Rachmaninoff.
Image from the video game Pitfall! © 1982 Activision.

It's true that Rachmaninoff wrote the concerto for himself to play on tour and was possessed with freakishly big hands that (legend has it) could stretch a twelfth (that's an octave and a half) on the keyboard. But what makes this concerto so difficult is the interwoven nature of its writing. The conductor does more than just accompany a pretty melody--he and the orchestra get into a complicated dialogue with the soloist that sometimes verges on argument. It also calls for fearsome precision among all those trills, keyboard runs and hand-crossings, pointillist playing at full forte.

Mr. Ohlsson and Mr. Spano made a congenial team, solving the concerto's problems as they unfolded its secrets. The first movement's complicated cadenzas (where the pianist takes on the role of both orchestra and soloist, an idea first developed by the composer Alkan) held the audience breathless. The slow Intermezzo sang a sad Russian song. And the pell-mell finale, calling for the greatest degree of virtuosity from the pianist proved a thrilling experience.

After a tumultuous reception from the audience, Mr. Ohlsson returned to the keyboard. Turning to the house, he announced: "This is too famous for an introduction." Then he played a slow, loving Clair de Lune from Debussy's Suite Bergamesque. It was the perfect contrast to the Rachmaninoff, and an ideal way to end the evening.