2018-19 Season Preview: There Will Be (New) Blood

Jaap van Zweden and Deborah Borda take the reins at the Philharmonic.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Welcome to the jungle: Jaap van Zweden takes over at the Philharmonic.
Photo by Chris Lee © 2018 The New York Philharmonic.

The New York Philharmonic's upcoming season features a diverse slate that sees americas oldest orchestra dispensing with a few less popular initiatives while opening a few that will hopefully fill seats, and accelerating the orchestra’s transition from the Alan Gilbert era to the stewardship of its new music director, Jaap van Zweden.

Concert Review: Settling Their Differences

The New York Philharmonic opens their 175th season.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Alan Gilbert is starting his last year as music director of the New York Philharmonic.
Photo by Chris Lee © 2016 The New York Philharmonic.

The New York Philharmonic opened its 175th season on Wednesday night with a concert built around Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 9, better known as the New World Symphony. The concert at David Geffen Hall marked the beginning of the orchestra's final season under the hand of music director Alan Gilbert, whose contract expires in June of next year. The concert was attended by music press, donors and glitterati, with the whole affair broadcast live on Facebook, another Philharmonic first.

Concert Review: With a Slide and a Clatter

Two concertos debut at the NY Phil Biennial.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Percussionist Martin Grubinger was the featured soloist

in John Corigliano's percussion concerto Conjurer. 

The NYPhil Biennial, that exuberant, multi-borough celebration of modern music by America’s oldest orchestra entered its home stretch on Friday night, with the first of two orchestral concerts at David Geffen Hall. And yet, the orchestra’s Lincoln Center home was sparsely seated on this pleasant summer night, with the fire of enthusiasm that marked the 2014 edition strangely muted. Audience members were confined to the orchestra level seats and their ranks swelled by a visiting conference of trombone enthusiasts.

Concert Review: The Crimes of a Century

The Los Angeles Philharmonic returns to Lincoln Center.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Speaks with his hands: Los Angeles Philharmonic music director Gustavo Dudamel.
Photo by Luis Cobelo © 2014 Deutsche Grammophon/Universal Music Group.

The return of conductor Gustavo Dudamel to New York is always a momentous occasion. Sunday's concert with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall featured two heavy-weight symphonies that stand one century apart: the Symphony No. 1 of New York composer John Corigliano and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5., a perennial audience favorite. Outside, a small group of protestors congregated to remind concert-goers of the dangerous conditions in Mr. Dudamel's native Venezuela.

Inside, the conductor and his orchestra had other concerns.

Opera Review: The Glittering Undead

The Manhattan School of Music resurrects The Ghosts of Versailles.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Marie Antoinette.
Painting by Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun.

In 1991, John Corigliano's opera The Ghosts of Versailles was the toast of New York. The witty libretto (by William Hoffmann) fearlessly combined Beaumarchais' robust comedy with the grief of an uncertain afterlife and the bloody nightmare of the French Revolution. Mr. Corigliano's music is a perfect complement, a polymath score rife with references and musical riddles, incorporating modern music alongside classicism. Its vibrant, emotional heart is wrapped in gilt.

Following one revival at the Met, Ghosts was silenced in New York. This sparkling revival is mounted by the Manhattan School of Music. (The school also happens to be Mr. Corigliano's alma mater.) Due to limitations of the Borden's orchestra pit, certain large instruments (percussion, harps) had to be played elsewhere in the school, and digitally mixed with the main performance.

These performances were also the first New York stagings of a smart, spiffy production by Jay Lesenger. The massive orchestration was also carved down (by orchestrator John David Earnest) to a lean 48 players under the taut control of Steven Osgood. These two artists (exiles from New York City Opera after that company's recent turmoil) worked together to create a grand evening, and one of the most enjoyable opera performances of this spring season.

Concert Review: Ten Years After Tragedy

John Corigliano's One Sweet Morning premieres at the Philharmonic.

Alan Gilbert leads the New York Philharmonic.
Photo by Chris Lee. © 2011 New York Philharmonic.

On Friday night, the New York Philharmonic unveiled composer John Corigliano's One Sweet Morning, a moving song cycle commissioned to mark the dark decade since the World Trade Center fell on September 11, 2001.

Now 73, Mr. Corigliano has a long history with this orchestra. His father, John Corigliano Sr., was the concert-master of the orchestra for 23 year. The ensemble has a history of championing his brand of American post-Romanticism. But when he was commissioned to compose music on the subject of September 11th, he intially refused, not wanting to provide a soundtrack to the images of that horrific day.

Instead, he turned to poetry, creating a song cycle, One Sweet Morning. (The title comes from the final poem, written by Yip Harburg, the librettist for The Wizard of Oz.) Mr. Corigliano chose four poems. A Song for the End of the World by Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz depicts the dreaded, anticipatory hush before apocalyptic events. The heat of battle itself  is portrayed with a setting of a bloody passage from Homer's Iliad. The traumatic effect of war on a loved one is shown in War South of the Great Wall, a poem by Li Po. The work ends with a new orchestration of Yip Harburg's poem "One Sweet Morning" which paints an idyllic dream of peace.

Stephanie Blythe's rich, dark mezzo plunged to astonishing depths of the contralto range in the first poem. The Homer passage mixed sung narrative and sprechstimme, the long list of fallen Trojan heroes standing for everyone killed on both sides of the U.S.'s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Li Po poem was accompanied with exotic percussion, including an authentic Chinese war drum creating dread-filled, throbbing rhythms.


Suddenly, after a tremendous, atonal crescendo, the smoke and dust swirled away and Ms. Blythe began to sing the long lyric lines of One Sweet Morning. Mr. Harburg's lyrics express the idea of rebirth and peace after conflict. The rose imagery and solemn chords create an almost Mahlerian mood, but the sound is distinct. As the melody spun forth, the song rose on the final repetitions of the word "morning", bringing balm to the listener even as it questioned the events of the past decade.

The new work was preceded by Samuel Barber's Essay No. 1, an orchestral tone poem in two sections. This work, a direct cousing of the famous Adagio for Strings, served as an effective curtain-raiser for the evening. Strong brass playing and lush strings were effectively lead by music director Alan Gilbert.

The second half of the concert featured the Seventh Symphony of 19th century romantic Antonín Dvořák . This is one of the Czech composer's more serious works, and one of the staples of the orchestral repertory. It's not the orchestra or the conductor's fault that the Seventh seemed a little lightweight after the emotional searing of Mr. Corigliano's piece. That said, the Seventh featured a spectacular slow movement, never taken too slowly, and gorgeous contributions from the Philharmonic horns and woodwinds.