Concert Review: It Was the Bottom of the Ninth

The Vienna Philharmonic opens Vienna: City of Dreams.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Franz Welser-Möst. Photo by Terry Linke © 2010 The Vienna Philharmonic.

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is a cornerstone of the concert repertory, a natural choice for the Vienna Philharmonic to open Carnegie Hall's Vienna: City of Dreams festival. On Tuesday night, the orchestra arrived in New York to begin their much-anticipated six-performance residency with a performance of the Ninth under Austrian conductor (and favorite son) Franz Welser-Möst.

Concert Review: There Still Ain't Nothing Like a Dame

Mitsuko Uchida returns to Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Mitsuko Uchida. Photo © Decca Classics/Universal Music Group.

It's almost unfair to write a "review" of a pianist like Mitsuko Uchida. The Japanese-born, Vienna-educated Dame Commander of the British Empire brings a unique expertise and musical understanding of whatever material she programs, combining a bold musical imagination with a bold technique and a smooth, slightly dry legato that has made her an international superstar.

Concert Review: The High Ground

Emanuel Ax and Mahler at the White Light Festival.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Emanuel Ax played at this year's White Light Festival.

On Sunday afternoon, as their city staggered along its path to recovery from Hurricane Sandy, New Yorkers gathered at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater to hear an unusual hybrid of solo recital and concert featuring New York Philharmonic Artist-in-Residence Emanuel Ax and members of that same orchestra in a program billed as Song of the Earth.

The concert (part of this year's White Light Festival)  featured that penultimate work by Gustav Mahler was present , in its currently en vogue chamber arrangement by Schoenberg. This concert was really about establishing connections by placing music in proximity: the Mahler piece was preceded by piano works by Schoenberg and before that, Johann Sebastian Bach.

The Bach work was the E♭ minor Prelude and Fugue (No. 8) from Book I of the Well-Tempered Clavier. Mr. Ax has only started playing Bach in public this year, and still uses the sheet music. Nevertheless, the slow, ascending steps of the Prelude led to a climax, followed by the descending, spiraling figures of this complex, fascinating fugue. As always with this artist, there was a beauty of tone and clarity of expression which held the attention rapt in the darkened theater.

Concert Review: Ax Breaks New Ground

The Philharmonic's new Artist-in-Residence plays Bach and Schoenberg.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Emanuel Ax. Photo from medici.tv.

Thursday night at the New York Philharmonic marked two milestones for pianist Emanuel Ax. It was the soloist's first concert as the orchestra's newest Artist-in-Residence. It was also the first time that this veteran pianist played the music of Johann Sebastian Bach in front of an audience. Music director Alan Gilbert conducted.

The program opened with Bach's Keyboard Concerto in D minor. Mr. Ax is an adept, fluid artist. But in the opening  of the Allegro his playing gave the feeling that he was also finding his comfort zone in this piece. The performance began to jell with the introduction of a second thematic subject as soloist and conductor began the long game of call-and-response.

The central Adagio was more assured. Mr. Ax sounded more assured in these slow passages, playing the cadenzas with a light, controlled touch that allowed the notes to flow smoothly together. The finale, with its distinctive, descending theme featured tight interplay between Mr. Ax and Mr. Gilbert. Orchestra and piano chased each other through the descending theme, finally ending the chase on a harmonious cadence.

Concert Review: A Grand Tour of the Gilded Age

Sir Simon Rattle brings the Berlin Philharmonic to Carnegie Hall

Black-and-white brilliance. Sir Simon Rattle in action.
Photo © EMI Classics.

Mention the Berlin Philharmonic to a classical music aficionado, and you'll get a dreamy response, with memories of floor-shaking fortissimos and the flexible, powerful army of musicians that can create liquid tones of light and shade and transport a listener to a state of bliss.

Sir Simon Rattle and the orchestra in question made a welcome return to the Carnegie Hall stage on Thursday night, with a program celebrating the rapid changes in music that took place at the turn of the 20th century. In his decade at the helm of this orchestra, Sir Simon has remade the orchestra into a lean, flexible ensemble, capable of playing even the most familiar music with freshness and energy.

The four works programmed were by four different composers from different countries. But they cohered into a potent artistic statement, forming a kind of mini-symphony when played over the course of the evening. That statement started with Emmanuel Pahud's flute, leading off Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune. With this ten-minute work, Debussy has been acknowledged (for better or worse) as the composer who ended the spell of Wagner and paved the way for the 20th century.

This performance owed something to that German composer. The weary dream of the solo flute echoed passages of melting beauty in Parsifal: the sound of dappled light and softly breathing woods. Dreamy brass chords meandered into this forest of sound. An English Horn evoked a sad shepherd. And the music hypnotized, seeming to hang floating in the air as it wound to a soft close.

The "dance" movement as Antonín Dvořák's The Golden Spinning-Wheel, a late example of the composer's final style where symphonic structures were replaced by that newer form, the tone-poem. The Wheel is an effective symphony in minature, contrasting the gallop of horses through a Bohemian forest with the horrifying fate of a girl tortured and mutilated by her evil relatives. The Berlin cello section drove the piece forward, slowing for a central section that recalled the wide American vistas inspired by Dvořák's visits to the American Midwest.

The slow movement of this "mega-symphony" was Arnold Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht, played by the strings in the composer's expanded orchestration. Credit here goes to the razor-sharp string playing, evoking the drama of a man and a woman in the woods negotiating the future of their troubled relationship. Under Sir Simon's leadership, the tonal fabric was stretched to its limit, with delicate solos on the violins and violas leading towards a soft, transcendent close.

Many symphonies conclude with a theme-and-variations. In this case: Sir Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations, a kind of parlor game played by a huge orchestra. Elgar's original "enigma" has a meaning that has never been decoded by conductor, critic, or composer. But the opening theme was eloquently stated, and the tonal colors of the Philharmonic were fresh and bright. Sir Simon then launched into the astonish series of re-workings, re-orchestrations and rhythmic re-structurings. The 23 variations were divided into paragraphs of musical thought, with the whole flowing forward from his baton.

While the secret behind Elgar's musical riddle has never been cracked, it is known that each variation serves as a musical tip of the hat to all of the important people (and one dog) in Elgar's immediate social circle. As the work moved past the famous "Nimrod" variation, the orchestra began building up into a giant dance of joy. Each quarter of the ensemble was heard from in this muscular, good-natured performance, which was finally joined by the organ for a triumphant, final shout. That climax was fitting, as the last movement depicts Elgar himself.