At Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium, on the evening of Wednesday, March 6th, I had the great pleasure of attending a superior concert performed by the outstanding musicians of the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal, brilliantly led by its Artistic Director and Principal Conductor, Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

 

The program began memorably with a New York premiere, an impressive account of Cris Derksen’s bewitching, impressively scored Controlled Burn from last year, featuring the composer on cello. An unusually promising soloist, Tony Siqi Yun, then entered the stage for a marvelous account of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s enchanting, enormously popular Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18. The initial Moderato movement opens solemnly and Romantically with a beautiful Russian-sounding melody, which leads before long to a gorgeous lyrical theme. The Adagio sostenuto that follows is meditative but also song-like in character, with another exquisite melody as its main theme; it concludes quietly and delicately. The Allegro scherzando finale is grand, virtuosic, propulsive, and often moody; it also has the passionate quality to be found in the other movements as well as some inward moments, and ends triumphantly. Enthusiastic applause was rewarded with a wonderful encore: the same composer’s Prelude in B-flat Major, Op. 23, No. 2.

 

The second half of the event was even stronger: an extraordinary reading of Jean Sibelius’s glorious Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 43. The captivating, initial Allegretto movement starts majestically, although with tragic inflections; at its finish, the music fades into silence. The ensuing slow movement—marked Tempo andante, ma rubato—is more mysterious, with a brooding quality, but it acquires a more agitated character. The succeeding Vivacissimo is suspenseful, almost frenetic, while—contrastingly—its Trio is relatively serene. The Finale—an Allegro moderato—is almost incomparably thrilling—frequently mystical, at times eccentric, with some emotional passages. Abundant applause elicited another fabulous encore: Edvard Grieg’s lovely "The Last Spring" from Two Elegiac Melodies, Op. 34, No. 2.

At Stern Auditorium, I had the exceptional pleasure to attend three terrific concerts—presentedas a part of Carnegie Hall’s current festival, “Fall of the Weimar Republic: Dancing on the Precipice”—on consecutive days—beginning on the evening of Friday, March 1st—featuring the outstanding musicians of the Vienna Philharmonic, under the extraordinary direction of Franz Welser-Möst.

 

The initial program opened exhilaratingly with a marvelous account of the great Anton Bruckner’s magisterial final symphony, the Ninth. The first movement starts with a quiet, Wagnerian fanfare and the music quickly attains a towering grandeur, imbued as it is with a soaring Romanticism. Proto-Mahlerian passages alternate with quieter, often enigmatic, sections; the music is not free of eccentricities, such as a highly agitated episode midway through. Given its extravagant length, it’s not entirely surprising that, structurally, it often seems amorphous, until its powerful ending. The Scherzo that follows is energetic and propulsive—almost menacing—with softer, appropriately playful interludes; its sprightly Trio is almost Mendelssohnian in character. The concluding Adagio begins with another Wagnerian prologue, succeeded by much music of a meditative or tragic cast, and closes peacefully.

 

The second half of the event was also striking: an accomplished performance of Alban Berg’s intriguing Three Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 6. The initial Prelude is uncanny and dramatic, finishing abruptly, while the ensuing Round Dance is also mysterious, with almost sinister inflections, and is somewhat aggravated in mood. The concluding March is perhaps even more agonistic in character, building to a stunning close.

 

The concert on the next evening began with an effective version of Paul Hindemith’s admirably scored, if challenging Konzertmusik für Blasorchester, Op. 41, from 1926. The Konzertante Ouvertüre has a ludic, if also fraught, quality and the quirky, ironical second movement consists of six variations on the German folk song, “Prinz Eugen, der edle Ritter,” while the work ends with an exuberant March. More remarkable was a sterling rendition of Richard Strauss’s dazzling 1946 Symphonic Fantasy from Die Frau home Schattten—itself a supreme operatic masterpiece—which builds to a sumptuous finish.

 

The second half of the concert was also strong, starting with a superior reading of Arnold Schoenberg’s difficult but not unrewarding Variations for Orchestra from 1928, the composer’s “first orchestral work to employ the 12-tone method,” according to the program note by Jack Sullivan. Unforgettable, however, was a vigorous realization of Maurice Ravel’s mesmerizing La valse, completed in 1920. Sullivan explains:

 

As early as 1907, Ravel was haunted by the idea of creating a gigantic apotheosis of the Viennese waltz, a work to be called “Vienna” that would glorify the waltzes of Schubert and the Strauss family. But by the time he got around to composing the piece—at the behest of Sergei Diaghilev, who had already produced hisDaphnis et Chloé—the culture he wished to celebrate was collapsing into the abyss of World War I.La valsebecame not simple glorification but, in Ravel’s words, the depiction of a “fantastic and fatefully inescapable whirlpool.” Glitter and opulence are part of the scenario, but so is “the impression of a fantastic whirl of destiny.”

 

He adds, “According to the scenic directive appearing with the score”:

 

Clouds whirl about. Occasionally, they part to allow a glimpse of waltzing couples. As they gradually lift, one can discern a gigantic hall, filled by a crowd of dancers in motion. The stage gradually brightens. The glow of the chandeliers breaks out fortissimo.

 

The final program, on that Sunday’s afternoon, was possibly the finest of all: a brilliant execution of Gustav Mahler’s astonishing final Symphony, the Ninth. The initial Andante comodo—which movement Berg thought was the “most glorious he ever wrote”—has a quiet opening that eventually becomes highly agitated for much of its length and includes some curious passages before concluding gently. The second movement, which begins slowly but acquires a brisk rhythm, has something of the sardonic quality of the Ravel. The satirical Rondo-Burlesque that follows is tumultuous—but with an ethereal Trio—and closes emphatically, while the Adagio finale is incandescent, with a celestial ending.

 

The artists, deservedly, were enthusiastically applauded.

Photo by Fadi Kheir.

 

At Zankel Hall on the evening of Thursday, February 29th, I had the pleasure to attend a fine concert—which was presented as a part of Carnegie Hall’s current festival, “Fall of the Weimar Republic: Dancing on the Precipice”—featuring the excellent orchestral ensemble, The Knights, exemplarily led here by its Artistic Director and Conductor, Eric Jacobsen.

 

The night began at its acme, which was a superlative account of Maurice Ravel’s astonishing Le tombeau de Couperin. Ravel completed the piano version of it “in 1917, shortly after his discharge from the French army, and orchestrated it two years later,” according to the useful program note by Harry Haskell. He goes on to provide some more background on the work:

 

In the Baroque tradition of the tombeau, or musical memorial, he dedicated the six original movements to the memory of fallen comrades. (His orchestral suite omits the second-movement Fugue and the final Toccata, in which the writing is especially idiomatic for the keyboard.) Inspired by the forms and procedures of Baroque music, his music anticipates the neoclassical style that flourished in the 1920s. Although a dance by François Couperin provided the initial impetus for the work, Ravel wrote that “the tribute is directed not so much to the individual figure of Couperin as to the whole of French music of the 18th century.”

 

The Prélude that opens the suite is oddly ebullient for an elegy, while the Forlane that immediately follows is quirky and also strangely effervescent. The ensuing, more solemn Menuet is probably the prettiest of the movements and the concluding Rigaudon is exuberant at times but with a subdued middle section.

 

The extraordinary Wu Man—a virtuoso of the traditional Chinese string instrument, the pipa—entered the stage for an impressive performance of Du Yun’s powerful Ears of the Book—which was co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall, The Philadelphia Orchestra and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra—which received its world premiere at this event. I here reproduce the composer’s note on the piece:

 

The soloist is the narrator of the story. We listen to her, telling us of encounters that fan out like folds of skin.

 

Ears of the Book, footnote of a paragraph. Shu-er, a word used in ancient Chinese bookbinding that in literal translation means the ear of the bookmark where titles of each section would be notated.

 

Rather than dividing the piece into movements or sections, I saw Polaroids of scenes. Each Polaroid is a snapshot in an emotive mosaic. As in our daily life, these Polaroids appear unexpectedly in the streets, on our kitchen counters, in our key-holder bowls, and scattered around deep corners of our living space. We see moments frozen in time, and our memories relive them, yet again, for us. Our lives are made of intertwined threads that are never broken.

 

The work begins with whiffs of the Nanyin, a Fujianese opera style (from southern China). It is my own footnote of a sonic state with which I resonate. These sonic moments ebb and flow quickly with the orchestra and morph into other lands before taking their own shapes. An interjection, a migration to somewhere else.

 

Thank you to Wu Man for giving me inspiration on the pipa. More importantly, together we attempted to work against the grain of the pipa, finding new territories for this instrument to venture into. And so, we decided together, for the Chinese title, theEars of the Bookcould also mean listening to the stories of the frozen Polaroids that are yet to be told.

 

The work is evocative, mysterious, and sometimes agitated, ending abruptly, and exhibits the major influence of traditional Chinese music. Du Yun was present to receive the audience’s acclaim.

 

The second half of the evening was also memorable, starting with an admirable version of Kurt Weill’s seldom played, dramatic, serious, and compelling Symphony No. 1 from 1921–written, remarkably, when he was only twenty-one. The program closed enjoyably with three classic songs, beginning with Bob Dylan’s marvelous “When the Ship Comes In”—from his celebrated album,The Times They Are a-Changin’—effectively executed here in vocalist Christina Courtin’s own arrangement. Wu Man then returned to the stage to accompany the wonderful singer, Magos Herrera, for a superb rendition—arranged by Artistic Director Colin Jacobsen—of the beautiful “Geni e o Zepelim” by Chico Buarque, from his 1978Ópera do Malandro.Thefinalperformance was of “Alabama Song”—famously recorded by The Doors as well as by David Bowie—written by Weill and Bertolt Brecht, from their magnificent 1930 opera,Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny;it was sung by Courtin and Alex Sopp, accompanied again by Wu Man on thepipa.

 

The artists were rewarded with an enthusiastic ovation.