Above: pianist Emanuel Ax, soloist with the New York Philharmonic this evening
Friday June 21st, 2013 – The New York Philharmonic‘s current Artist-in-Residence, Emanuel Ax, and Composer-in-Residence, Christopher Rouse, were both featured in the first half of this evening’s programme at Avery Fisher Hall. After the intermission, the orchestra’s Music Director Alan Gilbert led a performance of his own RING JOURNEY: music drawn from Richard Wagner’s epic RING Cycle.
In the Playbill, Maestro Gilbert answers the “…terrible question: who is you favorite composer?” with the name ‘Haydn’. His admiration was evident in the joyous clarity of his shaping of the composer’s Piano Concerto No. 11 in D Major. Emanuel Ax’s playing had a youthful gleam, turning the melodic lines with elegance and the cadenzas with polished perfection, his trills lovingly defined. Pianist, players and conductor meshed their artistry in pure music-making that was deeply satisfying to experience.
I first heard the music of Christopher Rouse from a Yo-Yo Ma recording of the composer’s Cello Concerto. At the New York City Ballet, Peter Martins has created two ballets to Rouse works: the 2002 INFERNAL MACHINE (seen earlier this year) and the 2006 FRIANDISES.
In its New York première performances,
Rouse’s Symphony No. 3 is a tribute to the Prokofiev 2nd symphony, the “symphony of iron and steel” (Prokofiev’s words). The orchestral forces are huge and the opening statements are a cacophonous but lucid fanfare, thunderous and epic. Later, in the more lyrical passages of the work, the composer finds unusual veins of beauty: a passage involving oboe and harp made me think of FIREBIRD. Throughout, the dense sound textures were vividly expressed by the orchestra’s super-human players, and Maestro Gilbert shaped the whole into a persuasive, and gigantic, statement.
Alan Gilbert’s RING JOURNEY takes its inspiration from Erich Leinsdorf’s earlier arrangement of the Cycle’s immortal themes. RING fanatics (Mr. Gilbert is one, by his own description) draw their life blood from this music, and the standing ovation that greeted the conductor at the end of the evening seemed to me to indicate that people want to hear more of Gilbert’s Wagner.
Alan Gilbert’s RING JOURNEY, which he rightly describes as a ‘suite’ rather than a ‘fantasy’, commences with the ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ and continues chronologically thru excerpts from WALKURE, SIEGFRIED and GOTTERDAMMERUNG. Gilbert shows a sure and steady hand at maintaining the flow of the music; some of the passages he chose to include are ‘transitional’ in the operatic sense, but they are gorgeous transitions and by exploring them here Gilbert steers clear of a ‘greatest hits’ feeling.
The overall span of the piece was quite glorious, and the playing was simply superb: a special ‘bravo‘ to Philip Myers who stepped offstage to play Siegfried’s horn call with splendid warmth and amplitude.
In view of such grandeur and musicality it seems selfish to ask for more; but I’d hoped to hear the Rhinemaidens’ trios, the Entry of the Gods into Valhalla, the Winterstürme theme, the Sword motif, and most especially Brunnhilde’s poignant “Ewig war ich” – the core melody of the SIEGFRIED Idyll. The answer, dear Maestro Gilbert, is that you must program more of the RING in the next few seasons, especially in view of the fact that The Met can’t deliver it anytime soon.
Hearing this music so spectacularly played and watching Mr. Gilbert’s loving sculpting of it from the podium, I couldn’t help but wish for voices. As the conductor built the introducton to the GOTTERDAMMERUNG prologue duet with breath-taking clarity and passion, I desperately wanted Christine Goerke or Lise Lindstrom to burst thru the door and launch into “Zu neuen Taten!”
Oberon's Glade 