New York Classical Review

Béla Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and Lang Lang don’t seem like a natural fit. The concerto is not only the composer’s final work in the form, but one of his very last compositions and very much a late-style piece, with an often inscrutable logic and form and the kind of private, promiscuous changes in mood of a mind freeing itself from the structure of time. The pianist, meanwhile, is a very public and demonstrative performer, frequently valuing ostentatious gestures over a discerning approach to music as well as a consistent technique itself.

On the other hand, the Vienna Philharmonic and Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 seem not just simpatico but they are historic companions, the orchestra playing the work under Mahler’s baton at the beginning of the 20th century. So approaching Friday night’s concert in Carnegie Hall with conductor Andris Nelsons—the first night of the VPO’s annual visit—one balanced wariness with expectations. Both of these were upended.

To start, Lang Lang was often unexpectedly subtle and even understated in the concerto. It was startling to hear him accept the simplicity and quiet of the enigmatic opening phrase, his lines were warm and mellow, with a little question mark after each. The strings had a lovely, soft texture too. The spirit was about looking into internal experiences.

The pianist’s patience in the middle movement was also impressive, and though the spaciousness in the music and its emphasis on the right hand gave him the chance to indulge in his trademark, carving a curve in the air with one arm while the other is playing, it didn’t come off as too self-regarding on this occasion.

Playing against his own type and reputation were the best parts of this performance, and appropriate and attractive in this piece. But there were several problems too. One was that except for specific moments when the pianist and orchestra had direct interaction, like the bird calls in the second movement, the two were never fully coordinated. Some of this was details of tempo and rhythm, but more so where and when changes in emphasis, dynamics, and energy.

When Lang had a light touch, things were fine. The stretches of more active, louder music didn’t come off well. This was a problem both for the pianist and the orchestra—neither had the right feel for Bartók’s rhythms and the shape of his more aggressive phrases. Force and volume were there and the accents were strong, but also flat, the music pounded on the beat and didn’t jump off of it. This made stretches of the first movement muddy, and the finale grew increasingly monotonous as it went along. 

Lang returned almost immediately for an encore, Franz Liszt’s Consolation No. 2. This was the pianist as one knows him: self-indulgent, putting a romantic temperament on display, gliding his hands through the air, making the music almost unrecognizable as it became all about him. In contrast to the mixed concerto, this rendering actually felt right and natural.

The high hopes for Mahler’s symphony were boosted by the opening moments, which were quiet but with a robust underpinning, and an excellent offstage brass fanfare. The musical thinking seemed both sharp and calm. But this was quickly dispelled by the let-down of a strange interpretation from Nelsons and some surprisingly ragged playing from the VPO.

Nelson’s approach was both interventionist—highlighting specific details of orchestration and isolating the short end of phrases for abrupt tempo modulations—and uncomfortable. His choices were often at odds with the nature of the music, and seemed arbitrary. It was as if the music was rushing up on him, and he was unable to see far enough ahead to prepare the present moment for how it would resolve. Rather than make the most of expressive possibilities, Nelsons made the least of them.

The consistent feeling was of not hearing Mahler in the music, not hearing his incredible and organic imagination, lines and themes flowing into each other and developing in concert. Instead, everything felt blocky, sectional. In the wonderful third movement, the transition from the opening material to the second theme was marvelous, but all the ones in the final movement were stiff and abrupt. There was a good ländler feel in the second movement, but the klezmer music in the third had no style or flavor.

The playing was disappointing too. The timbres and colors in each section were fine, especially the woodwinds, but at louder dynamics balances were lost, and everything became an undifferentiated mass. In the finale, the orchestral sections were poorly coordinated, and the strings were a little sloppy in a way that was reminiscent of the old-school VPO. That wasn’t a problem in itself, but the horns didn’t stand at the end, so the hint of a throw-back spirit seemed disappointingly inadvertent.

That spirit burst out in the encore, Von Suppé’s Light Cavalry Overture. This was a crisp, colorful, boisterous performance, the finest and most authentic playing of the night.

The Vienna Philharmonic with conductor Andris Nelsons plays Kurtág’s Petite musique solennelle, Mozart’s Symphony No. 36, and Dvořák’s Symphony No. 6, 8 p.m. Saturday; and Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra and Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2, 2 p.m. Sunday. carnegiehall.org