Cleveland Orchestra Performs Stravinsky’s Pétrouchka at Carnegie Hall

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Monday, 24 March 2025 13:55

Written by Jack Angstreich

Photo by Fadi Kheir.

At the wonderful Stern Auditorium on the night of Wednesday, March 19th, I had the privilege to attend another superb concert presented by Carnegie Hall—the second of two on consecutive days—featuring the outstanding musicians of the Cleveland Orchestra under the incomparable direction of Franz Welser-Möst. 

The event started brilliantly with a fabulous rendition of Igor Stravinsky’s marvelous Pétrouchka, played here in its 1947 revision. In quite useful notes for this program, Peter Laki provided some relevant background:

After the resounding success of The Firebird in 1908, Igor Stravinsky became an instant celebrity in Paris. His name was now inseparable from the famous Ballets Russes, whose director, Sergei Diaghilev, was eager to continue this most promising collaboration. Plans were almost immediately underway for what eventually became The Rite of Spring.

When Diaghilev visited Stravinsky in Lausanne in the summer of 1910, he expected his friend to have made some progress with The Rite of Spring. Instead, he found the composer engrossed in a completely different composition. Stravinsky had begun writing a concert piece for piano and orchestra in which the piano represented “a puppet, suddenly endowed with life, exasperating the patience of the orchestra with diabolical cascades of arpeggios.” The puppet was none other than Petrushka (or Pétrouchka, in French), the popular Russian puppet-theater hero. Diaghilev immediately saw the dramatic potential of Stravinsky’s concert piece and persuaded the composer to turn it into a ballet. Alexandre Benois, a Russian artist and longtime Diaghilev collaborator, wrote the scenario with Stravinsky and designed the sets and costumes for the performance.

The annotator then describes the initial movement of the score:

The first of the four tableaux (“The Shrovetide Fair”) alternates between the noise of the crowd and songs played by street musicians. At first, we hear a flute signal accompanied by rapid figurations that evoke the bustle of the fair. Soon the entire orchestra breaks into a boisterous Russian beggars’ song, followed by the entrance of two competing street musicians, a hurdy-gurdy player and one with a music box.

Soon, the puppet theater opens and the Showman, playing his flute, introduces Pétrouchka, the Ballerina, and the Moor to the audience. As he touches them with his flute, the three puppets spring to life and begin the famous “Russian Dance,” in which the piano plays a predominant part. The dance and the tableau eventually end with a bang.

The fantastical is seemingly invoked at the very outset of the music even if what it ostensibly depicts is relatively prosaic. The propulsive rhythms impart a suspenseful quality and the “Russian Dance” proves especially exhilarating. Laki continues:

The second tableau moves the action to Pétrouchka’s room. It starts with a sonority that has become emblematic of the work: two clarinets playing a bitonal melody—that is, in two different keys at once. After a short piano cadenza, we hear a theme giving vent to Pétrouchka’s anger and despair at his failure to win the Ballerina’s heart. His fury changes into quiet sadness in a slow, pseudo-folk song, played by the flute and piano with occasional interjections from other instruments. The Ballerina soon enters, and Pétrouchka becomes giddy with excitement. Then she leaves, and the earlier despair motif closes the tableau.

The third tableau takes place in the Moor’s room. His slow dance is accompanied by bass drum, cymbals, and plucked strings, whose off-beat accents impart a distinctly Middle Eastern flavor to the music. Soon, the Ballerina appears, trumpet in hand, and dances for the Moor. She then starts waltzing to two melodies by Viennese composer Joseph Lanner (a forerunner of the great Strauss dynasty) while the Moor begins his own, less graceful dance. The waltz is interrupted as Pétrouchka suddenly enters the room. His fight with the Moor is expressed by frantic runs before the orchestra plays violent fortissimo chords as the Moor chases Pétrouchka out the door.

The Ballerina’s waltz is particularly lovely but not without a comic dimension that becomes more pronounced. The annotator goes on to add:

The fourth and final tableau brings us back to the fair, where, as the sun sets, more and more people are gathering for the festivities. A series of numbers are performed in succession. Among them: A group of nursemaids dance to two Russian folk songs, a trained bear dances to a peasant’s pipe (represented by two clarinets playing in their highest register), and a drunken merchant stumbles across the stage, his tune played with frequent glissandos in the strings.

Suddenly, the celebration is disrupted by a scream coming from the puppet theater. Pétrouchka rushes in, pursued by the Moor, who overtakes him and strikes him down. Soft woodwind solos, accompanied by high-pitched violin tremolos, lament Pétrouchka’s death. But as the Showman arrives to pick up the puppet and take him back to the theater, Pétrouchka’s ghost appears overhead as two trumpets intone his melody. Only a few soft string pizzicatos accompany the close of the curtain; the last event in the piece is the resurgence of Pétrouchka the invincible, thumbing his nose at the magician and the entire world, which had been so hostile to his pure and sincere feelings.

The work concludes very quietly.

The second half of the evening was comparable in strength: a terrific account of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s extraordinary Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Op. 64, from 1888. Laki again is informative:

After his return from abroad, Tchaikovsky decided to write a new symphony, his first in 10 years. Characteristically, the first sketches of the new work, made on April 15, 1888, include a verbal program portraying an individual’s reactions in the face of immutable destiny, involving stages of resignation, challenge, and triumph:

“Introduction. Complete resignation before Fate, or, which is the same, before the inscrutable predestination of Providence. Allegro. (1) Murmurs of doubt, complaints, reproaches against XXX. (2) Shall I throw myself in the embraces of faith??? A wonderful program, if only it can be carried out.”

Tchaikovsky never made this program public, however, and in one of his letters even went out of his way to stress that the symphony had no program. 

He adds:

Many people believe that the unnamed, mysterious “XXX” in the sketch stands for homosexuality. In his diaries, Tchaikovsky often referred to his homosexuality as “Z” or “That.”

The theme of Fate is first heard in the somewhat lugubrious opening movement’s Andante introduction. Laki comments:

English musicologist Gerald Abraham noted that this theme was taken almost literally from an aria in Mikhail Glinka’s opera A Life for the Tsar, in which it was sung to the words “Ne svodi na gore” (“Do not turn to sorrow”).

The main body of the Allegro con anima movement is frequently dynamic and passionate but with more subdued passages; it finishes abruptly and very softly. The ensuing, soaringly Romantic Andante cantabile is indeed song-like with a beautiful main theme played by the French horn and a second—that too is captivating—introduced by the clarinet; a powerful crescendo ushers in a recapitulation of the first motif. The music again intensifies followed by the recurrence of the initial theme; the movement closes gently. 

The brief Valse movementthat succeeds this, marked Allegro moderato, is very charming; as it becomes more spirited, it remains enchanting, ending more forcefully. The glorious Finale has a majestic character that becomes more animated, although with lyrical interludes; the music reaches a turbulent climax, while the jubilant, Presto codaachieves a triumphant close.

The artists, deservedly, received a very enthusiastic ovation.

Off-Broadway Play Review—Chisa Hutchinson’s “Amerikin” at Primary Stages

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Sunday, 23 March 2025 23:50

Written by Kevin Filipski

Molly Carden and Daniel Abeles in Amerikin (photo: James Leynse)

Cleveland Orchestra Performs "From the House of the Dead"

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Friday, 21 March 2025 13:56

Written by Jack Angstreich

Photo by Fadi Kheir

At the wonderful Stern Auditorium, on the night of Tuesday, March 18th, I had the great pleasure to attend a terrific concert presented by Carnegie Hall—the first of two on consecutive days—featuring the amazing Cleveland Orchestra under the superlative direction of Franz Welser-Möst.

The event started fabulously with a dazzling account of Ludwig van Beethoven’s magnificent, incredibly famous Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67. The initial, Allegro con brio movement is dramatic, stirring, even exhilarating, while the ensuing Andante con moto is stately on the whole, with some almost pastoral passages—the music gradually intensifies, becoming more playful briefly near the movement’s end. The relatively brief Allegro that follows is forceful with an awesome, fugue-like section, succeeded by a slower, more tentative episode. The stunning, Allegro finale is exuberant and exultant, but with quieter, graceful interludes; it concludes triumphantly.

A highlight of the evening was the first work in the second half of the concert: an excellent rendition of the seldom played, marvelous, superbly orchestrated Suite from Leoš Janáček’s opera—first performed in 1930—From the House of the Dead. According to Hugh Macdonald’s useful notes on the program, “In 1979, conductor František Jílek devised an orchestral suite from three sections of the work.” He adds that, “The first movement is the opera’s Prelude.” Marked Moderato, it has some folk-like elements, and is kaleidoscopic and ultimately mesmerizing. Macdonald then explains that: 

The second movement is music that accompanies a play within the opera in Act II. The prisoners are working outside on the construction of a riverboat. On an improvised stage, they perform two plays, mostly in mime. The first is the Don Juan story, with the Don being carried off by devils at the end, and the second is “The Miller’s Beautiful Wife,” based on a short story by Gogol about a wife who hides her lovers around the room while her husband is away. The last lover turns out to be Don Juan, who dances off with the miller’s wife before the flames consume him.

An Andante, the movement is again variegated, even heterogeneous, but once more bewitching in its ingenuity and imagination—it finishes unexpectedly. The annotator concludes: 

The last movement represents the original ending of the opera. Alexandr Petrovic, the leader of the group of prisoners, is to be released along with an eagle that the prisoners caught earlier. There is a sense of freedom and triumph, even though, at the close, the prison guards order the remaining prisoners back to work.

Also with a Moderato tempo, some of this has affinities with musical Impressionism—it closes brilliantly.

The night finished satisfyingly with an exceptional realization of Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3, Op. 72b, from 1806—its performance surpassed the recent one of the New York Philharmonic conducted by Marin Alsop. The annotator records that:

[ … ] the three Leonore overtures are incorrectly numbered, misnumbered when they were published, and not, as it turns out, in the order in which they were written. No. 2 was the first Beethoven wrote, No. 3 the second, and No. 1 the third, all to some extent sharing musical material. The Fidelio Overture itself, quite different from the others, came last.

He says further:

By common consent, No. 3 is the finest as a self-supporting concert work, although in the theater it is usually felt to dwarf the opening act musically and preempt the final act dramatically. No doubt Beethoven felt the same, for his replacement for it, No. 1, is shorter and much milder in tone. And the eventual final replacement, the Fidelio Overture, makes no reference to the opera’s music and serves simply as a curtain-raiser.

According to the annotator, the No. 3 was composed “for a revival of the opera in Vienna [ … ] building on themes that had served in the original overture in 1805 and expanding their reach and impact.” The introduction is measured and portentous; Macdonald reports: “In the slow section, the melody from Florestan’s Act II aria, when he lies in a dark subterranean dungeon in mortal despair, is briefly given out by clarinets and bassoons before the music winds itself up for the transition to the Allegro.” About the lively middle part, which has its quiet moments, he cites some passages as remarkable:

These include the second main theme in the bright key of E major, which is another version of Florestan’s aria played by the flute over the violins. Then, in the middle of the action, everything stands still as a trumpet call is heard from the distance. This is the signal, in the opera, for the arrival of the Minister, who will intervene in time to stop Florestan’s murder at the hand of the evil prison governor. The trumpet call is heard a second time, confirming the prisoner’s rescue and the joy of his wife, Leonore, who has contrived to get into the dungeon disguised as a young man named Fidelio.

The coda is propulsive, breathless and jubilant; about it, the annotator astutely observes that for the composer, “it was the ultimate affirmation of constancy, liberty, and human courage.”

The artists, deservedly, were very enthusiastically applauded.