Monday, May 20, 2013

NY Philharmonic Performs Scheherazade

This article was originally published on my Typepad blog on September 29, 2012

This was the beginning of the season for me and was the first concert on my subscription series to NY Philharmonic Saturday matinees. What I like most about this series is that member of the Philharmonic perform chamber music in the first half. This gives concert goers the opportunity to see the individual performers away from the orchestra.

This season all the chamber pieces will be by Brahms. The first was the Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115, composed in 1891. It was interesting to hear that mellow tone that the clarinet added to the traditional string quartet. 

The second half featured the full orchestra, conducted by Alan Gilbert, performing Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, Op. 35. Though it was composed in 1888, only three years before the Brahms, the ballet music of Scheherazade is a world away from Brahms' restrained formalism. While Brahms was still firmly in the classical style, Rimsky-Korsakov's music was full of a lush decadence that was only empahasized by the piece's "Oriental" flourishes. 

Gilbert's conducting, though energetic, was unconvincing. The last movement was strident where it should have been forceful. The real joy was listening to the great violinist Glenn Dicterow as soloist.

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