Philharmonic Finale: Lindberg & Beethoven

I attended the final New York Philharmonic subscription concert of the year on Saturday night, June 26.  Music Director Alan Gilbert led the orchestra in the world premiere of Magnus Lindberg's "Al largo," a joint commission by the NYP, the London Philharmonic, and Casa da Musica (Portugal).  After the intermission, Gilbert and the Philharmonic were joined by vocal soloists Christine Brewer (soprano), Jane Henschel (mezzo), Anthony Dean Griffey (tenor), and Eric Owens (bass-baritone) and the New York Choral Artists (prepared by their director, Joseph Flummerfelt), in a performance of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, Op. 123.

It's been several days since the concert.  I had delayed writing about it through a combination of busy-ness and some puzzlement about what to say concerning Lindberg's piece.  Lindberg is a highly-regarded mid-career Finnish composer who is in the middle of a two-year appointment as Composer-in-Residence at the Philharmonic.  I had found his appointment, made to coincide with the beginning of Alan Gilbert's music directorship, to be somewhat surprising.  Gilbert is the first New York-born music director in the history of the orchestra (which dates back to the 1840s), and one would have thought that he would select an American composer for this prestigious position, which brings with it the exposure of numerous performances of the composer's work over the two year period.  But Gilbert evidently admires Lindberg a lot, and became well-acquainted with his work during Gilbert's years of conducting in Scandinavia as music director of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic (2000-2008).  

The season opened with a new Lindberg work, and so it was an interesting bit of symmetry to perform another new Lindberg piece on the last program of the season.  (Lindberg had other works performed during the season, and curated the two new-music concerts presented by ensembles drawn from the orchestra during the season, conducting the first of the two and selecting the composers who were commissioned to write.)  In my experience as an NYP subscriber for more than 30 years, Lindberg has been the most visible and involved composer-in-residence that the orchestra has had, and the pieces he has presented in response to NYP commissions have been worth hearing, so Gilbert's decision to appoint him seems to have been a successful one.  Whether his works will enter the permanent repertory is another matter.  It is so difficult to judge these things, to have some sort of realistic perspective about which works will stick and which will fade. 

I found "Al largo" to be full of interesting moments, lots of colorful orchestration, rhythmic and dramatic effects, long lyrical lines, inspiring fanfare-like brass figures, but somehow I felt that it lacked musical coherence.  An uninterrupted half hour without any immediately comprehensible structure, and despite the lyrical writing without any really memorable tunes...  Contemporary composers rarely write memorable tunes, unless they are working in the pop or theatrical (stage and film) fields.  Even contemporary operas tend to lack memorable tunes these days, although I thought I heard some that might achieve that status in Jorge Martin's new opera, Before Night Falls, whose premiere I attended in Fort Worth last month.  Of course, it is distinctly possible that if one heard repeated performances of "Al largo," one would discover the tunes that are there in plain hearing but are not easily apprehended as such.  This has been my experience with many modern works over the course of my career as a listener.  Today I hear tunes in Schoenberg works that totally escaped me earlier, and I am even starting to hear the occasional tune in the music of Carter.  It takes the ear time to adjust to new ways of listening....   But for now I can say that I found the Lindberg piece interesting.  The Philharmonic would be doing a fine service for its listeners and its composer-in-residence if they would produce a CD release made up of their performances of his music over the past season.  (They have a download series, but I don't like my classical music downloaded, preferring the better sound and more permanence provided by a CD. Fine as the ipod is for casual listening on headphones, I really prefer my component sound system at home for serious listening.)

Missa Solemnis is actually one of those pieces that took me some time to appreciate.  As a student, I bought an LP recording conducted by Gunther Wand that made virtually no impression on me.  It wasn't until relatively recently, under the prompting of a friend who is a big fan of the piece, that I acquired a score, sought out many different recordings, and finally came around to really appreciating it with repeated listening.  I can finally agree with the composer that it is one of his greatest works, perhaps teh greatest. 

The piece lends itself to drastically different modes of interpretation - not just the difference between modern and "period" instruments, but also the different between a warmly devotional approach and more restrained "classical" approach.  Should Beethoven's great mass be played like the classical Haydn masses that were composed not too long before and were well known to Beethoven, or should it be played as a great dramatic expression, as a soul-mate of the 9th Symphony?  I heard with real excitement a few years ago a performance at Avery Fisher Hall by John Eliot Gardiner with an early music ensemble, and I've enjoyed recordings embracing differing approaches, from the monumentalism of Klemperer and the intense, almost operative drama of Toscanini, to the romantically inclined Bernstein, and so on.

Gilbert's approach on this occasion was difficult to type-cast.  He reduced the size of the string body somewhat from the full strength that might be used to perform the 9th Symphony.  The choral group was also a bit smaller than one might expect for a performance of, say, the Verdi Requiem.  In that sense, he was signalling some responsiveness to period practice.  On the other hand, this was a very full-blooded performance, with the strings producing the deep, rich sounds that characterize the New York Philharmonic in romantic music.  Wind solos, which abound in this work, were rendered with great distinction, the soloists were well in tune with the conductor, and the chorus was superbly well-prepared and held up their end.  It was a middle-of-the-road performance, very well done, technically all in place, and rendered with restraint but adequate feeling.  The tempi felt right for the music, fast enough to maintain momentum but not so fast as to undermine the majestic elements of the work.  I found the projection of translations over the stage made a big contribution to enjoying the piece, helping to emphasize the way Beethoven structured his music to reflect the ebb and flow of the text and dramatize those portions that lend themselves to such treatment.

All in all, I though this was a splendid climax for the subscription series, and the audience gave all of the performers -- but especially Gilbert -- an extended ovation at the end.  His first season as music director has been a big success, introducing new music, variety, and excellent performances from the orchestra.

Unfortunately for the players, they don't get much rest, because tonight they begin the two week Summertime Classics series with Bramwell Tovey, then they're off to Vail, then they come back for their Varese concert as part of the Lincoln Center Festival.  I don't think there is much rest in store for them until August.  (And I suspect there will be plenty of unfamiliar faces on stage tonight, as I have noted in the past that the NYP management has used the Summertime Classics series to give some of the regulars some time off while giving full-employment to the orchestra's regular substitutes and, in some cases, talented students of the NYP members.  At times I've questioned whether they should even be calling the performing organization the NYP, since so many of the familiar faces may be missing. It will be interesting to see who shows up tonight!)