As America's oldest orchestra, and a band that can legitimately lay claim to being in the international elite, the New York Philharmonic was given two consecutive evenings to show its mettle to the Proms audience.
After Stucky, Gershwin and Stravinsky on the first of these, Music Director Lorin Maazel pitted two twentieth century greats, Ravel and Bartók, against Tchaikovsky – his Fourth Symphony.
Although there was no mistaking the quality of the orchestra, though, this was a concert which only occasionally took off. Maazel's conducting failed to bring out the passion and commitment much of the music required; too often it sounded as though brass fortissimos were deemed all that was required to generate excitement.
Ravel's Mother Goose Suite, which opened the concert, was distinguished by some extremely high-quality playing, from the woodwind in particular, and the New Yorkers produced a delicately textured sound which suited Ravel's highly detailed orchestration well. While there was no denying the surface beauty, though, it was difficult to detect anything beneath. In his programme note Bayan Northcott talks of the 'idea of orchestration as a technical end in itself, complementary to the actual substance of the music'; in Maazel's hands, it was perhaps a lack of fantasy and imagination that failed to let that substance shine through.
However, while a performance of the Ravel that emphasised the surface had a certain validity, Maazel's approach to Bartók's suite from The Miraculous Mandarin was fatally undercharacterised, refined where it should have been raw. The opening cacophony, a description of a chaotic and decadent urban environment, seemed too polite: the string playing, although note perfect, was plush and comfortable rather than rudely elemental, providing a an unsuitable background for the properly snarling brass. Although the rest of the suite was helped by some highly characterised solo playing, particularly the trombones and the woodwind, this was a strangely uninvolving performance. The finale did find the interpretation catching fire but I still felt that for all the volume – the brass unfortunately obscuring the rest of the orchestra – this was a reading that failed to tap into the immense power of Bartók's score.
The performance of the Tchaikovsky after the interval, unfortunately, suffered from the same drawbacks. There was no lack of granite permanence in the opening fanfare, described by Tchaikovsky himself as representing 'Fate, the force of destiny… invincible, inescapable', but with the consistently brass-heavy balance, and some slight tuning problems with the unison horns, I began to dread the motif's return more than is probably normal. It seemed to typify Maazel's approach, where letting the brass play out was a handy shortcut for generating excitement. And although the balance did them no favours, I longed for more than uniform tidiness from the violins in particular; theirs was a sound with a certain warmth and lustre but one which struck me as fatally short on passion for a lot of the performance. Even the exquisitely turned wind solos were undermined by slightly loose ensemble. There were flashes of passion, such as in the powerful development section, but it all struck me as a case too little too seldom. On more than one occasion I longed for the kind of white-hot emotion Daniele Gatti had procured from the much-maligned Royal Philharmonic in Tchaikovsky's Fifth earlier in the week.
Matters improved considerably in the central movements. The Andantino again showcased the excellent wind band – although both here and in the Scherzo there were issues with internal balance, especially when the horns joined in – and the strings also finally allowed their hearts somewhere near their sleeves when the beautiful theme was passed from section to section. They also showed considerable virtuosity in a swift account of the scherzo, both their pizzicato passages and the rustic dance taken up by wind and brass showed what a great orchestra this can be. Unfortunately, for all its superficial thrills – again, a lot of loud brass playing – the finale managed almost to sound bland, and in Maazel's hands the triumphant elation bordered too often on the bombastic.
A packed hall gave the orchestra a rapturous reception and was rewarded by three encores which showed the orchestra and conductor to better effect than the programme itself; by the end there was no doubting that the New York Philharmonic really is a great orchestra. However, I hope the arrival of the youthful Alan Gilbert at the helm, when Maazel steps down at the end of the 2008-09 season, will give it the kind of rejuvenating shot in the arm this concert suggested it needs.
By Hugo Shirley
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