New York Philharmonic Brings Stravinsky To Life

Details

Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Wednesday, 30 November 2022 15:02

Written by Jack Angstreich

Hannu Lintu conducts the New York Philharmonic. Photo by Chris Lee

At David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, on the evening of Saturday, November 19th, I had the great pleasure to attend an outstanding concert presented by the New York Philharmonic—who performed at their rare best—under the extraordinary direction of Finnish guest-conductor, Hannu Lintu, in his debut with this ensemble.

The event opened with a superb account of Igor Stravinsky’s challenging, even puzzling Symphonies for Wind Instruments, which I’ve never heard more effectively played. James M. Keller, in his unusually informative program notes, provides some useful background to the work:

[ … ] as the decade of the 1910s progressed, [Stravinsky] seems to have grown increasingly suspicious of the tendency of string instruments to be “expressive,” a characteristic that did not jibe well with the way his particular form of sonic modernism was playing out. When he did use strings, he increasingly did so in a non-traditional way, as in the entirely “objectified,” partly percussive approach to string playing required in his Three Pieces for String Quartet of 1914. Symphonies of Wind Instruments is an orchestral work that disposes of the string component entirely. Stravinsky found the wind instruments well suited to the kind of uninflected sound he was after. In a commentary he prepared to accompany early performances of this work, he described Symphonies of Wind Instruments as “tonal masses ... sculptured in marble ... to be regarded objectively by the ear.”

Stravinsky dedicated the work to his fellow composer, Claude Debussy. They had met in 1910, when Debussy congratulated him enthusiastically following the premiere of The Firebird, and they remained friends from then on. In 1913 Stravinsky dedicated his cantata Zvezdoliki (Le Roi des étoiles) to Debussy; in 1915 Debussy dedicated the third movement of his two-piano suite En blanc et noir to Stravinsky. The latter felt the loss keenly when his older colleague died, in March 1918. Not long after that, Stravinsky inscribed in a sketchbook the sonority that became known as the “bell motif” that would later appear inSymphonies of Wind Instruments— very possibly, some scholars believe, inspired by thoughts of Debussy.

In 1920 the Revue musicale, a distinguished Parisian publication, began planning an issue in tribute to Debussy, and the editor approached various composers about contributing memorial pieces that might be included in a musical supplement titled Le Tombeau de Debussy. Stravinsky had recently sketched a solemn chorale, tentatively for the harmonium, and decided to submit that as his piano piece. In orchestrated form (beginning with brass choir) it would serve as the conclusion of Symphonies of Wind Instruments, and Stravinsky expanded it with preceding sections as he built up his single-movement piece.

Also excellent was a brilliant realization of Béla Bartók’s powerful—if not often performed—Concerto for Two Pianos, which is also not one of his more accessible works; it featured two outstanding soloists—Sergei Babayan, in his Philharmonic debut, and his former pupil, Daniil Trifonov—along with percussionists Christopher S. Lamb, Daniel Druckman and Markus Rhoten. Keller is again helpful in laying out some context:

Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Two Pianos, Percussion, and Orchestra was originally crafted as a piece of chamber music. “What kind of chamber music should it be?” asked Bartók when, in the spring of 1937, the billionaire Swiss philanthropist Paul Sacher approached him about writing a chamber work to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Swiss Section of the ISCM (International Society of Contemporary Music). “Could it be, for example, a quartet for two pianos and two groups of percussion?” Sacher signaled that such an unorthodox combination would be acceptable, and Bartók moved ahead quickly, completing it by the end of the year. The composer, his pianist-wife Ditta Pásztory-Bartók, and two Swiss percussionists played the premiere at that anniversary concert, and the work scored so great a success that subsequent performances were quickly arranged for London, Brussels, Luxembourg, and Budapest.

In 1940 Bartók’s publisher convinced him to recast the piece as a Concerto for Two Pianos, Percussion, and Orchestra. This was not intended to supersede Bartok’s original conception, but rather to broaden the work’s possibilities for performance, particularly in the American market, where the publisher doubted that the chamber version would be programmed often.

He adds:

About the transformation of the sonata into a concerto, Bartók wrote:

It seemed advisable, for certain technical reasons, to add orchestral accompaniment to the work, though, as a matter of fact, it gives only color to certain portions of the work. The two-piano and percussion parts remain practically unchanged, except for some of the climactic parts which are now taken over from the two pianos as tuttis by the orchestra.

Even in this orchestrated version, the piece retains much of the spare quality that was inherent at its conception.

In 1938, to coincide with the premiere of the original sonata, Bartók penned an analytical introduction to the work, in German, which was published in theBasel National Zeitung.His observations remain relevant to the concerto version.

He explained that he had initially planned to use a single piano but decided to use two, the better to balance the frequently very sharp tones of the percussion instruments. ... The role of the percussion sounds varies: sometimes they reinforce the more important accents; in places they carry motifs serving as a counterpoint to the piano parts; and the timpani and the xylophone frequently play themes that act as principal subjects.

The first movement begins ominously and becomes spirited and dramatic at times. The ensuingLentois more sinister in character with some mysterious accents, while thefinaleis ebullient and propulsive. Babayan and Trifonov returned to the stage for a marvelous encore: the wonderful third movement of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major, K. 448.

The second half of the evening was even stronger, opening with a confident version of contemporary Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho’s beguiling, evocative and enigmatic Ciel d’hiver from 2013, a re-arrangement of the second movement of herOrionfrom 2002,which program annotator Nicky Swett describes as “massive” and as the author’s “second large-scale orchestral piece.” She adds: “‘I am interested in choosing stories with a timeless quality,’ [Saariaho] explained in a 2018 interview, when asked about the mythological tales she approaches in many of her pieces and operas.”

The concert concluded magnificently with what was the highlight of the entire evening, a mesmerizing performance of Jean Sibelius’s glorious Seventh Symphony. Keller again offers valuable commentary:

He worked on his final three symphonies concurrently for several years beginning in 1918. The Fifth had been premiered in 1916, but was undergoing a severe rewrite that would last through 1921; the Sixth reached its end in February 1923, and the Seventh occupied him for yet another 13 months beyond that.

In its early stages Sibelius sensed that this final symphony would unroll through three separate movements. In the end, he brought everything together into a single movement lasting some 21 minutes. The form is certainly not one traditionally associated with a symphony; in fact, Sibelius intended to title the piece Fantasia sinfonica. That name was used when he conducted the premiere, and the manuscript score shows traces of the inscriptionFantasia sinfonicaNo. 1, an interesting wording that suggests that Sibelius was holding open the possibility of writing additional pieces in the same vein. In any case, he changed his mind about the title shortly before the work’s publication, thereby admitting it to the roster of his full-scale, “proper” symphonies.

• < Prev
• Next >