Tuesday November 5th, 2013 - Esa-Pekka Salonen took the podium and Leila Josefowicz (above) was the violin soloist at tonight's New York Philharmonic concert. Two of the evening's works have associations with New York City Ballet: Ravel's Mother Goose Suite provided the score for Jerome Robbins' 1975 ballet Ma Mère L'Oye; and in 2010, Peter Martins set his ballet Mirage to the Salonen violin concerto, and the performances were conducted by Mr. Salonen with Ms. Josefowicz performing the concerto live.
The Robbins ballet has not been performed for a while, and should be seen again. Tonight's performance of the Mother Goose Suite reminded me of the ballet's naive charm, and the picturesque vignettes that Robbins created. The Philharmonic of course gave a ravishing performance of the work, responding to every expressive gesture of Maestro Salonen's beautiful hands.
Ravel's title and first two tales ('The Pavane of Sleeping Beauty' and 'Tom Thumb') come from Perrault, while Perrault's contemporary the Countess d'Aulnoy summoned forth the 'Empress of the Pagodas', and a later writer, Marie Leprince de Beaumont was the source for 'Beauty and the Beast'. The score then brings us to the enchanted 'Fairy Garden' where Sleeping Beauty and Prince Charming - of course - live happily ever after.
Ravel's settings for these tales abound in marvelous combinations of instruments and the score is a coloristic adventure, most especially in the 'Pagodas' episode; the finale, which reminded me a bit of the end of FIREBIRD, includes the chiming of wedding bells. Near the end of his life, Ravel was said to have lamented that he would leave nothing of merit behind and would only be remembered as a sort of "old fogey". This score, and so many of his other immortal works, prove the composer was very, very wrong in that self-assessment.
Leila Josefowicz appeared in a flowing, champagne-coloured gown and launched into the solo opening motif of the Salonen violin concerto with audacious energy. The concerto is a tremendous physical workout for the soloist, with rapid-fire arpeggios and thrilling cascades of coloratura sent bubbling over the shining orchestral textures. Salonen shows a remarkable skill in weaving the solo line of the violin into the overall tapestry of sound, and Ms. Josefowicz's vibrant playing made a spectacular effect.
The composer (above) wrote of his violin concerto: "...during the composing process...I felt that I was somehow trying to sum up everything I had learned and experienced up to that point in my life as a musician. This sense of having reached a watershed was heightened by the fact that I turned 50, the kind of number that brutally wipes out any hallucinations of still being young. There is a strong internal, private narrative in my concerto, and it is not a coincidence that the last movement is called Adieu. For myself, the strongest symbol of what I was going through is the very last chord of the piece; a new harmonic idea never heard before in the concerto. I saw it as a door to the next part of my life of which I didn't know so much yet, a departure with all the thrills and fears of the unknown."
Tonight's performance evoked memories of the Martins ballet - with its Santiago Calatrava set - which I would love to see again. Together Ms. Josefowicz, the composer/conductor, and the Philharmonic's inspired players made for a panoramic musical experience, and the audience responded with lively enthusiasm, finally eliciting a solo encore from Ms. Josefowicz which, if I am not mistaken, was a brief and wildly energetic excerpt from Salonen's Lachen verlernt (Laughing Unlearnt). By this point, the radiant violin virtuosa had the Avery Fisher audience in the palm of her hand.
The evening closed with a magnificent performance of the Sibelius 5th symphony. The Finnish government commissioned this work from the composer in 1915 in celebration of his 50th birthday. Sibelius drew inspiration from nature for the work's opening themes; a horn call suggests his sighting of swans passing in the sky above. He wrote: "Today I saw 16 swans. God, what beauty! They circled over me for a long time. Disappeared into the solar haze like a silver ribbon."
It took a few moments for me to adjust to the rather restrained beauty of the opening passages of the symphony: after the contemporary dazzle of the Salonen violin concerto, Sibelius draws us into a more contemplative realm. The musicians of the Philharmonic delivered the symphony's themes with burnished grandeur, and Maestro Salonen seemed very much in his element here.