After a lightweight premiere, Schumann provides the ballast with NYP, Szeps-Znaider
The theme for this week’s New York Philharmonic program, led by guest conductor Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider, could be Central Europe, with all the music originating from there 200 years apart. The theme could also be gestures; how music can be a social gesture and the possibilities and pitfalls of making music that is about effects and signs.
Headlining Thursday night’s opening performance in David Geffen Hall was the world premiere of Thomas Larcher’s returning into darkness, an extended one-movement piece for cello and orchestra, commissioned by the Philharmonic, the Serge Koussevitzy Music Foundation, and the Bavarian Radio, Tonkuenstler Vienna, and Netherlands Philharmonic orchestras. The work was written for and played by soloist Alisa Weilerstein, and followed by Symphony No. 2 from Robert Schumann.
To open the concert, the Philharmonic played the Intermezzo, Nocturne, and Wedding Merch from Mendelssohn’s music for A Midsummer’s Night Dream. This was a skillful performance, with an ideal shape to the dynamics and phrases of music that is about preparing context and mood for dramatic, narrative moments. Even before movies and soundtrack cues, Mendelssohn wrote these wise, witty, and warm vignettes to serve a purpose that was ancient even in his day. Though the social utility of the Wedding March has been overdone for a couple of centuries, it was pleasing to hear it played so well.
The beginning of Larcher’s piece was promising, with quiet, tense, ominous ideas from Weilerstein and the string section, an interesting maniacal focus on small things. This soon turned into a long series of wide glissandos for Weilerstein, crossing multiple octaves up and down. The problem was the glissandos were never a bridge to anything nor a full idea, just a gesture. The ultimate effect was simplistic, like spinning the frequency dial on an oscillator, and quickly grew tiresome.
Though Weilerstein was passionate, and the orchestra projected confidence and exactitude, there was no central feeling to this music. Flashes of color or rhythm or volume were interesting in the moment but left no impression other than a series of gaudy statements enclosing emptiness. (The confusion was reflected in the soloist’s bizarre outfit, which nearly turned into a hazard a couple times on stage.) Larcher has made some imaginative, well-structured piano and chamber music, yet this had none of the qualities one has heard in his previous work.
What a difference a half, and 200 years, makes. The first movement of Schumann’s symphony is nothing but gestures, but these establish atmosphere and mood, and are the structural elements Schumann built into a marvelous piece of music. The symphony has a wonderful, thriving spirit and the kind of balance and proportions that keep everything flowing with a purpose.
This was an utterly brilliant performance, beautiful, full of feeling and superb playing, thrilling from the stirring, immersive introduction all the way through to the end. Szeps-Znaider nailed perfect tempos—even a ridiculously, dizzyingly fast accelerando to close the second movement after a daringly slow trio section—and had exquisite control of the dynamics and the shape of the piece. Instrumental balances were so fine that one heard details of the orchestration that had been hidden in every previous performance. And always, there was the forward moving line, light but inexorable. This was virtuosic playing of one of the great symphonies, and beyond technique it was full of human feeling.
This program will be repeated 7:30 p.m. Saturday. nyphil.org
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