New York Philharmonic delivers fun and excitement at David Geffen Hall — review

New York Philharmonic

David Geffen Hall, New York

Susanna Mälkki might not have even been a candidate for the next New York Philharmonic music director, but for some music lovers she would have been a dream choice. Her visits as guest conductor are a highlight of any season, and the programme she led at the Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall showed how fine she is as a music director and how good a musical partner she is with the orchestra.

The works were individually attractive and, combined, made for a truly exciting experience. The concert opened with Charles Ives’s poetic The Unanswered Question, followed by the New York premiere of Felipe Lara’s Double Concerto, for flautist Claire Chase and bassist and vocalist esperanza spalding. After the intermission was Stravinsky’s 1947 retouching of Petrushka.

Some unquantifiable combination of the Phil’s growing experience and Mälkki’s ears made this the best sounding concert yet heard in the reconfigured hall. Strings were as fine as a thread yet still soft in the Ives, and principal trumpeter Chris Martin’s solo calls came from out in the lobby, an uncanny presence from far away.

The details in Petrushka were fascinating, and Mälkki pushed the tempo in key spots, the orchestra following with a sense of excitement and fun. The sound was weighty and rounded, and the amplification for the soloists in the Double Concerto sounded natural. This was one of the freshest 21st-century works one has heard, with Chase and spalding parrying with semi-improvised swoops and vocal phrases within a form that touched on abstraction but came together in rich, satisfying cadences. An altogether great night.

★★★★★

lincolncenter.org

Philadelphia Orchestra

Carnegie Hall, New York

Two nights later, the Philadelphia Orchestra played another New York premiere — John Luther Adams’s Vespers of the Blessed Earth — and more Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring. There was again special interest in who was at the podium, as Philadelphia’s music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin was ill and replaced by two conductors, Donald Nally and Marin Alsop.

Nally led Vespers, a Philadelphia commission for orchestra, chorus and soprano soloist (Meigui Zhang) in the fifth and final section. Nally was the logical choice as he is artistic director of the featured chorus, The Crossing choir; he prepared them in this music. The piece is a meditation on how the Earth is changing that needs real tension to balance the calm pace and harmonies; one felt that Nally could not carry enough focus and energy in the whole work.

Alsop was greeted with cheers when she came out on stage for The Rite and led a viscerally thrilling performance. There were flaws in specific details that pointed to the lack of preparation time with the orchestra: some of the brass were off a beat in the “Ritual of Rival Tribes” and some musicians lagged after the final cutoff of the first part. But the colours were fantastic and the overall force, driven especially by intense playing in the percussion section, was as committed and as fiery as it gets. This was a physically rousing experience that brought the audience to their feet.

★★★★☆

carnegiehall.org