The Philharmonic performed an afternoon of late nineteenth and early twentieth century music at yesterday's matinee that was fun and spirited and one of the more enjoyable programs I've attended at Avery Fisher this season.
The first half was short and, as is the practice at the Saturday matinee concerts, consisted of only a single chamber work performed by members of the orchestra - here Sheryl Staples, violin; Michelle Kim, violin; Cynthia Phelps, viola; and Eileen Moon, cello. The piece was the String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10 (1893) by Claude Debussy. It was the composer's only work in this genre (though he did plan a second which was never completed), but its originality has had an incredible impact on the course of musical history. The quartet's structure was traditional in form, but radically different in its execution from any that had preceded it. Though clearly influenced by the cyclic design of Franck's own 1889 string quartet, Debussy's work went off in an entirely new direction in which he developed the first movement theme throughout the composition rather than simply repeating it in each movement. The tones and rhythms he employed were influenced by the sounds Javanese gamelan he had heard at the Paris International Exposition and would later be termed "Impressionist" (a label Debussy himself always rejected). They prefigured the stylistic innovations that would appear only a year later in Prelude à l’après-midi d’un faune which is often claimed to have ushered in the entire era of modern music. The performance yesterday by the Philharmonic members was one of the best I have heard. It captured very well the music's elusive quality.
After intermission, the full orchestra came onstage to perform two piano concertos. These were the Piano Concerto in G (1929-1931) by Maurice Ravel and the Concerto in F (1925) by George Gershwin. Jeffrey Kahane conducted and was also the soloist on both pieces. It's extremely unusual to hear two piano concertos played one after the other, and this instance gave me a chance to hear similarities between the two pieces I might otherwise have missed. Primarily, both are deliberately playful and light in their presentation. In fact, Ravel is quoted in the program notes as saying:
"The music of a concerto should, in my opinion, be lighthearted and brilliant, and not aim at profundity or dramatic effects... I had intended to title this concerto 'Divertissement.' Then it occurred to me that there was no need to do so because the title 'Concerto' should be sufficiently clear."
As for Gershwin's concerto, it was always intended, from the time it was first commissioned by Walter Damrosch, as a followup to the 1924 Rhapsody in Blue and was meant to build on the earlier piece's combination of jazz and symphonic music in a popular work, only this time in one that was not programmatic.
The renditions of these two concertos was excellent. I have never been that impressed by Jeffrey Kahane, either as a pianist or a conductor, but at this concert he truly seemed to have found his métier. His spirited performance, as well as that of the orchestra, energized the audience and called forth long rounds of applause at its end.
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