Concert Review: The Struggle and the Reward

Alan Gilbert takes on the Bruckner Eighth.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Collaborators: Yefim Bronfman (at keyboard) and conductor Alan Gilbert.
Photo by Chris Lee © 2014 the New York Philharmonic.

The last completed work of a major composer has a special place in the music repertory. Last Friday night at the New York Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert led a program featuring the penultimate utterances of Béla Bartók and Anton Bruckner: the former's Piano Concerto No. 3 and the latter's Symphony No. 8.  If there is a common ground between these works, both came as the composers neared the end of their respective lives, battling illness and a lack of understanding from their respective musical communities.

Concert Review: An Excellent Adventure

Ludovic Morlot conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Ludovic Morlot conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra with pianist Richard Goode.
Photo by Stu Rosner © 2011 The Boston Symphony Orchestra.

On Tuesday night at Symphony Hall, the Boston Symphony Orchestra offered a program of four works that spanned three centuries and straddled four different genres of concert music. In what has become a pattern in this music director-less season, former BSO assistant Ludovic Morlot (now with the Seattle Symphony) conducted.

The journey began with Berlioz' Roman Carnival overture. Built from the "good parts" of the composer's failed opera Benvenuto Cellini, the work allowed Mr. Morlot to show his conductorial skills. He amassed Berlioz' vast forces, the searching solo for the English horn, chivvying strings and a blaze of brass. Given this performance, a BSO concert performance of the full opera (or at least an act of it) is an interesting idea.

Half the orchestra left, and a piano was moved in for Canadian soloist Richard Goode to play Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 25. Mr. Goode played hunched over the keyboard, his shoulder crooked and his lips moving in time with his fingers as he played. Despite this eccentricity (which recalled the mannerisms of Glenn Gould) the soloist played with limpid, sweet tone, using almost no force with Mozart's solo part.

This made a contrast to the Beethovenian force used in the cadenzas, which were Mr. Goode's own. (Mozart's cadenzas are lost.) These interpolated solos in each of the three movements proved thrilling. Mr. Goode seemed more alert in these passages, moving with alacrity up and down the keyboard and expanding on each movement's musical ideas. 

The clock moved forward to the 21st century as the second half of the program, which focused on modern music. Elliott Carter's Flute Concerto had its U.S. premiere in Feb. 2008 at Symphony, with soloist Elizabeth Rowe. She reprised her performace, playing the challenging solos that explore almost all sonic aspects of the flute--with the exception of Jethro Tull-style flutter-tongueing. 

Carter starts with a simple theme and builds from it, backing the soloist with a proportionately small orchestra. Complicated percussion is also featured, with temple and wood blocks and even a metal pipe joining in. Sliding chords in the strings and angular figures for woodwinds and piano anchor the expressive flute part, alternately playful, mournful and stern.  

The repertory moved to the 20th century as the full orchestra returned to play the Suite from Béla Bartók's The Miraculous Mandarin. Despite its quaint-sounding title, this is pretty grim stuff. The Suite covers the first two-thirds of the sordid ballet, the tale of a prostitute, a gang of toughs and a spooky, otherworldly client who just won't die like he's supposed to.

Clarinetist William Hudgins represented the dancing prostitute with agile, eloquent soloing over the chugging strings The four-man BSO trombone section outdid themselves, playing the dark two-note theme of the Mandarin with power and menace. Mr. Morlot led a tautly controlled performance of this famous, jagged score. Like most good performances of the Suite, it left one wanting to hear the whole thing.

Concert Review: The Hero and the Prince

Bartók and Dvořák at Symphony Hall.

Hero with a cello: the astonishing Yo-Yo Ma.
Photo not taken in Symphony Hall. © 2011 Sony Classics.

The orchestra roster printed in this year's Boston Symphony Orchestra concert programs still has a blank space by the words "Music Director." But Tuesday night's concert (the fourth of this program with guest cellist Yo-Yo Ma) proved that the BSO is moving on from the departure of James Levine.

Mr. Ma was at Symphony Hall to play Antonín Dvořák's Cello Concerto in b minor, an inspired product of the Czech composer's three years spent teaching music in America. Mr. Ma once described this concerto as "a hero's journey." He lived up to his description, playing the vivid solo part with fire, emotion, and total involvement with the music.

Dvořák wrote passages of great lyric beauty for both orchestra and soloist, with treacherous cadenzas for the latter. The formidable double-stops and trills up on the neck of the instrument can push any cellist's capabilities. Mr. Ma's responded with playing that seemed to get better with each movement. Playing with head thrown back and fingers flying, his cello wept in the slow section of the finale, before bringing the work to a triumphant close.

Juanjo Mena, who first conducted the BSO at Tanglewood in 2010, made his Symphony Hall debut with these concerts. Mr. Mena proved a skilled accompanist, helped by strong playing from the BSO. The horns deserve praise for the noble reading of the second subject of the Allegro, and the mystic, almost Wagnerian chorale heard in the finale. The subscription audience were enthusiastic, and adoring of Mr. Ma.

They were less happy about the second half of the program. The Wooden Prince is an early work by Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, and a work that was new to the orchestra. Mr. Mena displayed an unerring grasp of Bartók's tricky time changes. The Spanish conductor navigated the oversized orchestra (extra percussionists, celesta and saxophones) through the score's hairpin curves. 

Instead of sonic overkill, Bartók produces a wide palette of tonal colors, from the lurching percussive rhythm of the Prince himself to a long lyric pas de deux for the lead dancers. The work includesme lodies inspired by Hungarian folk-tunes, as well as the wry humor evident in his later, more popular ballet score The Miraculous Mandarin.

Mr. Mena's own podium performance was fascinating to watch, combining traditional time-beating with the herky-jerky movements of the ballet's title character. But at 50 minutes, and in 12 sections with no pauses, The Wooden Prince is a heavy meal for the first-time listener to digest. It was greeted with polite applause. Work, composer, and orchestra deserved better.

Concert Review: The Emersons' Endgame

At Mostly Mozart: Final quartets from four composers.

String theory: Philip Setzer, Eugene Drucker, Lawrence Dutton and David Finckel.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Emerson String Quartet. Photo from their website.

The Emerson String Quartet has reigned for three decades as one of the premium string quartets in chamber music. On Monday night at Alice Tully Hall, they cemented that reputation with a concert surveying the final string quartets by Haydn, Bartók and Schubert.


The ensemble also offered a pre-concert recital which deferred to the theme of the Mostly Mozart Festival. As a taster for a coming concert this fall, the Emersons played the third (and last) of Mozart's "Prussian" quartets. Although this piece was written in Mozart's last, difficult years, the writing sparkles with warmth and humanity. Part of this was because Mozart himself enjoyed playing the second violin or even viola, and thus wrote rich accompaniments to the upper melodic line.

Mozart's works in the genre are unparalleled for their warmth and invention. But when it comes to innovation, Haydn is the father of the string quartet. His 68th and last work in the genre is just two incomplete movements. It proved to be a good pairing with Bartók's last quartet, the Sixth. Pairing Haydn and Bartók is in vogue this year, and the Emersons made the most of the former's good humor and the latter's gloomy depths.


Written in the composer's difficult New York years, Bartók's last quartet is less spiky and dissonant than his earlier examples in the genre. But he still calls for unusual effects from the players: hard-plucked pizzicati, col legno (playing with the back of the bow) and guitar-like strumming from the violist. Each movement starts with a Mestó, a sad melody. The finale works out all of these lugubrious themes, ending in a heart-rending cry.

The formal program concluded with Schubert's 15th and last quartet. The Emersons played with an eye towards Schubert's expansive melodic ideas, particularly in the opening movement. (This theme might be familiar to Woody Allen fans: the director used in Crimes and Misdemeanors.)

The march-like adagio featured skilled glissando playing from the violins, and the fleet scherzo was taken at a scintillating pace. The Emersons dug into the descending main theme of the final movement with ith precision and rhythmic drive, showing almost telepathic communication as the navigated the rolling series of arpeggios.

The concert ended on a lovely note: the third of Dvořák's Cypresses, a series of songs that the composer transcribed for string quartet. Messrs. Finckel, Drucker, Dutton and Setzer played this last with longing and sweetness of tone.

Concert Review: Before the Tour, an Eroica

Lisa Batiashvili.
Photo by Mark Harrison © BBC Music Magazine.

Beethoven and Bartók at the Philharmonic
In two years as music director of the New York Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert has established himself as a force for modernism, expanding the appeal of the venerated orchestra through experimental programming and bold initiatives. This week's one-two punch of Bartók's Second Violin Concerto and Beethoven's Eroica Symphony may not be among his most innovative, but it made for one of the strongest concerts of the season.

The Bartók concerto led off the evening, featuring skilled Georgian violinist Lisa Batiashvili in the complex solo part. Bartók conceived an extended monologue for the instrument, interspersed with occasional dialogue between the soloist and the orchestra. He incorporated microtonalities, Hungarian folk-songs and unearthly orchestrations to make an original statement for the violim and orchestra.

Ms. Batiashvili displayed formidable technique, bowing the long legato lines with a smooth action and then leading the listener up dizzying spiral staircases of scales. She doublestopped with speed and authority. As she raced along, the notes on paper sounded like a stream of consciousness, bubbling forth over the orchestra.

Sometimes, the violin would waltz like a frantic Gypsy. At others, it droned like a hurdy-gurdy at a street fair. The slow movement, with the atmospheric, almost impressionist use of low strings and triangle, contained some of the finest music-making of the evening. Throughout, the soloist maintained a complex interaction with Mr. Gilbert and his orchestra, and their rapport was exciting to watch and listen to.

Beethoven's Third Symphony represented a vast expansion of the form. Nearly twice as long as any symphony before it, the Eroica travels a wide range of emotions in its journey. Beethoven wasn't writing program music here, but the opening one-two combination of the questing first movement and the somber funeral march remains a potent experience.

The Philharmonic played this landmark symphony with robust energy, led by a dancing, exhorting Mr. Gilbert. He conducted from memory. Tempos were a little static in the first movement, and the funeral march positively crawled under its own weight. In the final pages before the coda, Mr. Gilbert let his orchestra loose in a paroxysm of minor-key grief that rent the heart.

Beethoven lightened up in the last two movements, although the manic energy of the dance movement seemed almost forced after the funeral march. Although the whirling scherzo was marred by some dodgy tones from the Philharmonic horns, the movement was played with sunny energy and determination to move on from the funeral procession.

The finale, with its pizzicato theme and variations remains one of the most exciting experiences one can have in a concert hall. As the final brass chords of Beethoven's grand second theme rang out, Mr. Gilbert brought this performance to an heroic end.

Concert Review: Storm, Followed by Thunder

Salonen Ends Hungarian Echoes with Style

Your guide to Hungarian Echoes, Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Photo by Nicho Rodig © esapekkasalonen.co.uk

For the last three weeks, conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen has led the New York Philharmonic in the "Hungarian Echoes" festival, juxtaposing the music of Haydn, Bártok and Ligeti. Friday's concert built in momentum throughout, and culminated in an old-fashioned Finno-Ugraic beat-down. (The Finnish term for this is takapuoli potkiminen.)

As before, the concert opened with one of Haydn's three symphonies celebrating a specific time of the day. This one, Le Soir is the evening symphony, a forward-looking work that predicts some of the musical innovations that Beethoven would incorporate into his Sixth. The symphony featured concertmaster Glenn Dicterow and bassist Eugene Levinson, playing extensive solo parts against the orchestra, and culminated in an afternoon aural thunderstorm.

The first Bártok work on the program followed: the kinetic First Piano Concerto. Its tricky rhythms were no match for the all-Finland team of Mr. Salonen and pianist Olli Mustonen, who made the three movements a thrilling experience. Mr. Mustonen thundered through the heaviest passages, with his hands flying up and down the keyboard. This is music that requires rhythmic virtuosity, particularly in the heaviest passages. With able support from Mr. Salonen and the Philharmonic players, he scored a triumph.


With Clocks and Clouds, Mr. Salonen finally offered his audience the type of spaced-out music that most casual listeners associate with the name György Ligeti. Featuring a contrast between repeated, wordless vocalises and repeated figures in the strings and woodwinds, this would be appropriate accompaniment to the final psychedelic journey in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. As it was, the slow-building work climaxed several times before dying down to a moving silence.

The Philharmonic then brought its full force to bear on the Suite from Bártok's The Miraculous Mandarin, a shocking, violent work which deals with the collusion between a prostitute and two thugs who beat and rob her customers. Mr. Salonen's interpretation captured the force of every choreographed punch and kick, backed up with the "brass knuckles" of horns, trombones and tuba. With the conductor urging them on, the orchestra played with a precise brutality that would be the envy of any heavy metal band. It was a stunning end to Mr. Salonen's three-week Hungarian excursion.

At the Philharmonic: Hungarian Echoes

Esa-Pekka Salonen. Photo by Stefan Bremer

Starting March 10, the New York Philharmonic will open the three-week Hungarian Echoes festival. Led by Finnish conductor-composer Esa-Pekka Salonen, the festival will feature the music of Haydn, Ligeti, and Bartok.


Franz Joseph Haydn lived in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and was the court composer for Prince Nikolaus Esterházy. Living and working in the Prince's two residences of Eisenstadt and Esterházy from 1761 to 1790, Haydn set the standard for string quartets and symphonies, ushering in the so-called "classical" period.

Franz Joseph Haydn

At Esterházy, Haydn had access to his own orchestra, theater, and opera company. Since the Prince constantly demanded new music, Haydn obliged, writing over 80 symphonies, more than 50 string quartets, and 126 chamber trios featuring the baryton, an unusual member of the viol family with a set of sympathetic strings. (And yes, that was the Prince's instrument.)

Haydn is represented on the program by his 6th, 7th, and 8th symphonies, a tryptich nicknamed Le Matin, Le Midi and Le Soir.


Béla Bartók was crucial to the development of Hungarian music and national identity, Traveling into the rural parts of his country, Bartok made field recordings of songs and folk music, and then wrote music based on those recordings. Later, he fled the Nazis and emigrated to New York City, where he died from leukemia in 1945. He is considered the most important composer in modern Hungarian history.

Béla Bartok

Bartok represented at the Festival by the Concerto for Orchestra, the First Piano Concerto, the Suite from the ballet score The Miraculous Mandarin and three performances of the one-act opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle.

György Ligeti (1923-2006)continued where Bartok left off, writing compositions that explored the power of microtones, music that uses intervals that are between the notes of the standard 12-note scale. He received tremendous exposure from the film composer Stanley Kubrick, who used Ligeti compositions in his films 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut.

Györgi Ligeti

His music is well known to Philharmonic subscribers after last year's performances of the opera Le Grand Macabre, which had never been staged in New York until music director Alan Gilbert brought it to Avery Fisher Hall. This festival features Clocks and Clouds (written for 12 female voices), the Piano Concerto, and the Concert Românesc.

For more information on the Hungarian Echoes Festival and to order concert tickets, visit the New York Philharmonic's official web site at NYPhil.org