A thus-far strong season at Carnegie Hall continued brilliantly with two outstanding concerts—on the evenings of Friday, November 8th and Saturday, November 10th—given by the superb musicians of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.

 

The first program, under the sterling direction of the esteemed Mariss Jansons, opened delightfully with a wonderful account of Richard Strauss’s exhilarating Four Symphonic Interludes from Intermezzo, featuring a charming “Travel Fever and Waltz Scene,” a lyrical “Dreaming by the Fireside,” a witty “At the Card-Table,” and an exuberant “Happy Ending.” The same composer’s magnificent Four Last Songs were then exquisitely interpreted by the extraordinary Diana Damrau, who looked especially glamorous. She gave a passionate rendition of “Spring,” followed by the more introspective “September,” the more somber “Going to Sleep,” and the autumnal “At Sunset.”

 

The second half of the evening was also marvelous, a terrific realization of Johannes Brahms’s magisterial Symphony No. 4, which began with a Mendelssohnian reading of the first movement followed by an enchanting Andante. The dance-like scherzo was succeeded by a dramatic finale. Ardent applause ensued in an entrancing encore: the same composer’s exceptionally famous and thrilling Hungarian Dance No. 5.

 

The second program was also excellent, eloquently conducted by the young Vasily Petrenko, replacing an ill Jansons. The evening opened pleasurably with a fine version Carl Maria von Weber’s ultimately joyous Overture to Euryanthe.

 

Renowned soloist Rudolf Buchbinder then took the stage for a lovely account of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s ineffable Piano Concerto No. 23, beginning with a sparkling, if subdued, reading of the first movement, followed by a haunting Adagio and a vivacious finale. An appreciative reception elicited a splendid encore: Alfred Grünfeld’s Soirée de Vienne, Op. 56, Concert Paraphrase on Waltzes from Die Fledermaus (after Johann Strauss II).

The concert closed most memorably with a masterful performance of Dmitri Shostakovich’s highly original Symphony No. 10. The opening movement was solemn and powerful, while the scherzo was breathless and dazzling. The Allegretto was mysterious and suspenseful while the ingenious concluding movement was rendered arrestingly. An enthusiastic ovation drew forth another gratifying encore, the same composer’s Entr’acte (Allegretto) between Scenes 6 and 7 from Act III of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.

 

I look forward to the next local appearance of these superior artists.

 

A promising new season at Carnegie Hall continued with two excellent concerts on the evenings of Friday and Saturday, October 25th and 26th, given by the superb musicians of the Munich Philharmonic under the sterling direction of Valery Gergiev.

 

The first program opened excitingly with a confident account of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s perennially popular Piano Concerto No. 1, featuring the celebrated soloist, Behzod Abduraimov. The galvanic first movement was intensely Romantic while more lyrical, except during the more dynamic passages, was the ensuing, often Mozartean Andantino. The rousing finale was enthralling and earned a rapturous ovation which was reciprocated by an impressive encore: the Tchaikovsky Lullaby, Op. 16, No. 1, arranged by Sergei Rachmaninoff.

 

The second half of the evening was devoted to an admirably controlled performance—possibly the finest that I’ve heard in a concert hall—of Anton Bruckner’s magnificent Symphony No. 7. The musicians sustained the requisite gravitas of the opening movement, which they brought to a thrilling conclusion. Even more exalted was the elegiac Adagio which again climaxed majestically. The outer sections of the Scherzo were more propulsive, beautifully contrasting with the more subdued Trio. Most dramatic of all was the extraordinary Finale, which again moved the audience to ardent applause.

 

The second program was also outstanding, beginning enjoyably with contemporary composer Jörg Widmann’s Con brio, an arresting homage to Ludwig von Beethoven, with quotations from his Seventh and Eighth symphonies. The esteemed virtuoso Leonidas Kavakos then took the stage for a superior version of the Violin Concerto of Johannes Brahms. In the opening movement, the artists adeptly oscillated between the tragic and the affirmative, while the following Adagio was song-like but not without agitation, with the robust finale most ebullient of all. An enthusiastic reception again elicited a compelling encore: Georges Enescu’s "Ménétrier" (Minstrel) from Impressions d’enfance, Op. 28, No. 1.

 

The remainder of the concert consisted in a stunning rendition of Dmitri Shostakovich’s brilliant Symphony No. 5. The initial movement was somber yet spirited with the second the most playful. The introspective Largo was succeeded by the exultant Finale, earning the musicians more avid applause. The return of this ensemble to this stage will be highly anticipated.

 

Richard Nelson’s conversational, almost shockingly quiet plays—which began with That Hopey Changey Thing in 2010—happily continue with the start of his third cycle, The Michaels. 

 

Taking its cue from The Apples and The Gabriels—all of the plays are set in Rhinebeck, a bucolic small town two-plus hours north of Manhattan—The Michaels is set in the kitchen of Rose Michael, a former dancer and teacher who lives with her partner of six months, Kate. In the course of a couple of hours—all of these plays are set in real time, which accentuates the feeling that we are eavesdropping on a real family preparing dinner—Rose’s kitchen is filled not only with food and dance and music and conversation, but also with warmth: and even occasional discord. Present are her family and friends: Rose’s ex-husband, theater producer David; their daughter, dancer Lucy; David’s wife (and Rose’s colleague/friend from their dancing days), Sally; Rose’s niece May; and another longtime dancer friend, Irenie.

 

Rose’s incurable cancer hangs over the proceedings; Lucy is planning to go to France for a dance intensive but has second thoughts since she doesn’t want to leave her mother. Kate—who was Lucy’s ninth-grade history teacher, something that would seem contrived in another playwright’s hands but which shows Nelson’s close attention to grace notes that flesh out these relationships—doesn’t know much about dance, so she gets explanations when Rose namedrops Merce or Tricia or Paul or Pina. But Nelson isn’t just showing off his arcane knowledge: like his previous dance-oriented play, Nikolai and the Others (about Igor Stravinsky and George Balanchine’s collaboration on Orpheus), Nelson couches such information in the coziness of a chamber drama/character study, making it seem as natural as breathing.

 

And natural as breathing is what dance is to several of these characters, so Nelson affectingly includes a trio of dances, a solo each by Lucy and May and a duet for them (Charlotte Bydwell and Matilda Takamoto give fiercely physical performances as the pair). While their movements are exhilarating—the closeness of the audience to the stage makes these moments particularly intimate—the dance episodes also provide insight into the dynamics of the relationships between Rose and Lucy, and, by extension, to Rose and May’s mom, Rose’s sister, who is still living in their hometown of Utica: to Rose’s eternal, and amusing, horror. 

 

As always in these plays, the dialogue is delightfully natural: Nelson has mastered the art, from Chekhov, of quotidian talk providing further dimension to his characters than showier monologues or confrontations. Since it’s set on October 27, 2019—in the midst of the disaster that is the tRump administration—The Michaels mentions al-Baghdadi’s killing earlier that day, along with a French play that David saw in Paris about tRump and Kermit the Frog. But as Nelson showed in his other Rhinebeck Panorama plays, he’s not willing to gratuitously take down tRump and his Republican minions, however much they deserve it. Instead, there’s an unspoken sigh in the air, a semblance of political burn-out that defines these people, along with most of the country’s population.

 

The acting is, unsurprisingly, superlative. Maryann Plunkett (Kate) and Jay O. Sanders (David) are the only veterans of the other Rhinebeck plays, and their lived-in performances have a genuine feel of homey familiarity. Rita Wolf (Sally), Haviland Morris (Irenie) and Brenda Wehle (Rose) are equally masterly inhabiting their characters. The play’s final moments, thanks to the combined efforts of the writer/director and his estimable cast, are unbearably moving in their ordinariness—the ultimate strength of Nelson’s ennobling theater.