Concert Review: Trailing Clouds of Glory...

The Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia comes to Carnegie Hall.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Sorceress: Martha Argerich casts a spell.
Photo @ Warmer Brothers Classics.

Any visit to Carnegie Hall by a major international orchestra is cause for excitement. This week, the visitors are Rome’s own Orchestra of the National Academy of St. Cecilia, under the baton of Sir Antonio Pappano. The guest soloist for Friday night's concert: Martha Argerich. This legendary Argentiniean pianist is more than an audience favorite. Now 76, her skill, reculsivity and flat refusal to give solo recitals in the later part of her career has made her a modern concertizing legend. This was her first visit to the Perelman Stage in nine years.

Concert Review: When Bambi Met Godzilla

Mozart and Respighi at the New York Philharmonic.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The amazing fingers of Yuja Wang.
Photo by Felix Broede © 2015 Deutsche Grammophon/Universal Classics.

Programming a modern symphony orchestra concert requires balance, between the aesthetics of classicism and Romanticism, between modernity and the crowd-pleasing tonal music that is an ensemble's bread and butter. However, this week's New York Philharmonic program looked to be wildly out of balance, pitting a Mozart piano concerto (No. 9, the Jeunehomme) against Ottorino Respighi's giant Roman Trilogy, three sets of tone poems that, like the legions of ancient Rome, can simply bludgeon an audience into applause.