In a thrilling concert of major Russian music on Friday night, conductor Manfred Honeck united the New York Philharmonic players using a unique perspective not often heard on the David Geffen Hall stage.
Guest conductors arrive through a revolving door each week and, after a few rehearsals with the musicians, present a concert with the Philharmonic. Ideally, the ensemble's music director (in this case Jaap van Zweden) provides continuity, but with repertoire spanning centuries in a given season, or indeed in a given program, the Philharmonic can sometimes seem faceless. Add the challenge of calibrating the sound to the acoustics of a new auditorium and you end up with a lethargic performance.
Meet Honeck, music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. In a program combining Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony and Rachmaninoff's beloved Piano Concerto No. 2, Honeck effortlessly brought out sweep and sweetness, breadth and sophistication from the players. This concert was surprisingly cohesive in terms of musical value.
Known for his intense warmth throughout and especially for his performance of Tchaikovsky's Fifth, conductor Honeck brought a comfort of assurance to a work composed in the shadow of doubt. In his sketch, Tchaikovsky noted that his symphony contained a “denouncement of xxx”, which some read as a fight against rumors and anxieties about his sexual orientation. Piano Concerto No. 2 is the first work Rachmaninoff wrote after the fiasco of Symphony No. 1. He dedicated this book to the doctor who treated his creativity with hypnotherapy.
For an orchestra that sometimes only moves forward, the program is expressive and animated with great care. The Philharmonic's strings shade the melody, making it truly singable by using different dynamics within a single phrase. The woodwind instruments delivered the phrases with clean harmony. The brass that Honeck used ominously in Tchaikovsky roared and shone, while in Rachmaninov the horns drew rainbow arcs across the stage.
Perhaps Honeck's greatest secret was his ability to create both lightness and amplitude. Rachmaninoff's string opening melody had romantic grandeur and captivating translucency, without overshadowing the piano's arpeggios with a dull tone. The waltz of Tchaikovsky's third movement gives the feeling of virtually floating in the air, and the elegant and asymmetrical melody, despite its splendor, creates completely unexpected aerodynamic characteristics.
The concert began with the New York premiere of “musica pyralis,” reminiscent of an evening in the backyard of Katherine Balch's Connecticut home. The work was a study in shifting moods, vague, mysterious and fleeting: the firefly twinkle of a piano, the ribbing of low brass, the hollow rustling of a cellist tapping his fingers against the body of the instrument.
Honeck's way of rallying the orchestra around big ideas sometimes simplified the content of the score. In Tchaikovsky's first movement, the woodwind descending pattern (a detail that adds texture and complexity) came across as a barely audible ornament.
Likewise, Beatrice Rana's elegant treatment of solo piano in Rachmaninoff did not always correspond to Honneck's notions of High Romanticism. Rana anchored the opening with dark rolling figures and strong downbeats, but over the course of the piece she settled into a feathery lightness and almost playful delicacy. Her elegant, understated way of ending a statement has never been more endearing, but executing triplets can be a bit plain.
As usual, the orchestra's soloists were dazzling. In the symphony's slow second movement, principal clarinetist Anthony McGill carved arabesques with sparkling clarity, and Stefan Jon Bernhardsson's horn solo was achingly majestic.
But Honeck was unanimously able to make the entire section sound original. When the strings took on the famous melody of resigned heartache from the concerto's Adagio Sostenuto, the tone shone and the phrasing felt heartfelt as they committed to a single gesture.