Juilliard Orchestra Performs With "My Brilliant Friend" at Lincoln Center

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Monday, 06 July 2026 18:07

Written by Jack Angstreich

 Photo courtesy of Juilliard

At Lincoln Center’s wonderful Alice Tully Hall, on the night of Thursday, May 21st, I had the privilege to attend a superb concert featuring the outstanding musicians of the Juilliard Orchestra, under the inspired direction of JoAnn Falletta. 

The event started impressively with a sterling realization of the world premiere of Paola Prestini’s compelling, beautifully orchestrated My Brilliant Friend: The Story of a New Name. Annotator Carys Sutherland explains that “My Brilliant Friend: The Story of a New Name is Paola Prestini's second tone poem based on the novels” of Elsa Ferrante, adding that the composer “has aspirations to adapt the novels operatically as well.” She continues:

The Story of a New Name, a Juilliard commission, corresponds with the eponymous novel, the second of four, which “examines the volatile transition of Elena and Lila into the 1950s and '60s, transitioning from the foundational themes of childhood toward the ‘inescapable bond' and diverging trajectories of young adulthood,” according to Prestini's own program note. 

The composer describes the focus of the work as the “dissolution of their collective youth.” She goes on to say: 

In the latter half of the work, the sonic landscape evaporates into the dry, percussive heat of post-war Naples. Grounded in the rhythmic obsession of the tammurriata, the drums serve as a relentless metronome for Lila's resistance against the industrial grit and suffocating socio-economic structures of the era.

Sutherland records that the “tammurriata is a traditional Campanian folk dance.” The composer was present to receive the audience’s acclaim.

Also marvelous was a magnificent performance of Ottorino Respighi’s extraordinary Fountains of Rome, from 1916. The annotator reports that “The first movement, ‘La fontana di Valle Giulia all'alba’ portrays the fountain of Valle Giulia, which at this time had been recently constructed in a rural part of town, at dawn”—it is evocative, quasi-pastoral, and has a hushed quality. She avers that the ensuing “‘La fontana del Tritone al mattino’ opens with a fanfare in the French horns, representing the merman Triton blowing into his conch shell”—it is more energetic, even playful. The succeeding “La fontana de Trevi al meriggio” is even more dynamic, indeed stentorian, building to a powerful climax. The last movement, “La fontana di Villa Medici al tramonto,” also has a bucolic, if more reflective, ethos, and concludes very softly. 

The evening finished gloriously with a dazzling version of Maurice Ravel’s incomparable Suite No. 2 of 1912, drawn from his magnificent ballet score for Daphnis et Chloé. The great composer Igor Stravinsky reputedly referred to this music as “one of the most beautiful products of all French music.” The annotator remarks that “The second suite consists of the three final numbers from the original ballet, which is based off the eponymous Greek pastoral novel attributed to Longus.” She says that the enchanting first movement, “Lever du jour,” which creates a shimmering atmosphere, “is the sunrise in the nymphs' grotto and the reunion of the lovers, who had been separated by pirates.” She also says that the next movement, “Pantomime,” which is bewitching too, and more programmatic—and indeed, dramatic—

“is a play-within-a-play; the lovers have been saved by the god Pan, in tribute to his unrequited beloved Syrinx, and in return act out his story, which features an extended flute solo.” She calls “Danse générale,” the final movement, “a celebratory bacchanale”; it is exciting, turbulent, and highly rhythmic—the music intensifies, ending spectacularly.

The artists were deservedly rewarded with a standing ovation.