Thursday February 5th, 2015 - Lisa Batiashvili (above) is in the midst of her season as artist-in-residence with The New York Philharmonic and tonight she gave an exceptionally fine reading of the Samuel Barber's violin concerto under the baton of David Zinman.
The concert came in the midst of an extremely busy week for me; the programme opened with Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence Christopher Rouse's Iscariot of which the composer has said: “The title is of course derived from the name of Judas Iscariot, the famous betrayer of Jesus in the New Testament, although beyond this there is no biblical program to the work. Iscariot is at once both my most autobiographical score to date as well as my most ritualized. Though the music is continuous, the piece is nonetheless highly sectionalized into a pattern of alternating strophes and antistrophes in the ancient Greek dramatic tradition.”
The work, a miniature tone poem for a massive orchestra, was composed in 1989. Tonight it proved to be one of the most absorbing of the many Rouse works we have experienced during his Philharmonic tenure. It opens with an unsettling 'big bang": a tremendous thwack of the bass drum. This leads to a plaintive string chorale. The strophes Mr. Rouse mentions in his quote above are delineated by various combinations of instruments, highlighted against the rich blendings of the full orchestra: oboe and bassoon; brass and celeste; flute and celeste; high shimmering strings (evoking the passing of time); percussion; horns and trumpets played with a big build-up. All of this was well-wrought into a sonic whole by David Zinman and was - needless to say - superbly played by the artists of The Philharmonic.
Barber's violin concerto, which I have heard played so often at New York City Ballet for the dancework created by Peter Martins, is a particularly moving and meaningful piece of music work for me. Yes, we have the Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, and Bartok violin concerti - among so many others - and yet none of these speak to my heart as directly as the poignant themes of the Barber: this American concerto has so many associations for me that it's become iconic.
Ms. Batiashvili, ballerina-slender and lovely in a tangerine gown, gave a rendition of the work that displayed both her heartfelt lyricism and her technical deftness. She and Maestro Zinman showed a simpatico unity of musical vision here, and the Philharmonic musicians sustained the mood with their mellow, autumnal playing. Right from that marvelous opening chord, with the unexpected delight of the piano's underscoring, the concerto flows forward with a sense of poignant inevitability. In the adagio, the orchestra's peerless principal oboist Liang Wang played his haunting melody with tenderness of expression. Having lingered in the song-like themes of the first two movements, Ms. Batiashvili then tore into the non-stop flights of coloratura that Barber sets for her in the final movement. Her performance captivated the audience and, after basking in wave after wave of applause - rightly shared with Mr. Zinman and Liang Wang - the comely Ms. Batiashvili was called out for a final solo bow. She thoughtfully eschewed the notion of an encore (though clearly that's what the crowd wanted), instead letting the Barber stand as her splendid statement for the evening. Bravissima!!
After the interval, Rachmaninoff's 2nd symphony. This symphony’s length was remarked upon right from its second performance; as one criticat the time stated: “After listening with unflagging attention to its four movements, one notes with surprise that the hands of the watch have moved 65 minutes forward. This may be slightly long for the general audience, but how fresh, how beautiful the music is...” The writer speaks truth: for all the symphony's vast passages of musical allure, there are times when Jane Austen's 'you have delighted us long enough' comes to mind. It's all wonderful, and there's so much of it.
But for all that, Maestro Zinman and the Philharmonic gave a thoroughly impressive performance, pouring out the familiar themes which summon up an array of emotional response.
This second of Rachmaninoff's symphonies find thematic unity is a rather simple leitmotif which is first played by the double basses at the beginning of the first movement, which is slow and pensive. This gives way to a tantalizing allegro. It's in the symphony's third movement (Adagio) that the composer gives us one of the great outpourings of passionate lyricism in all of music. Here we could revel in the resplendent playing of the haunting melody by Anthony McGill's solo clarinet, showing his trademark mastery of dynamic nuance. As the adagio moves forward, it soars rapturously before before fading into stillness. Rachmaninoff then surges onward in a joyous rondo, pausing yet again to mine the lyric depths of a slower passage before the symphony reaches its animated conclusion.