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New takes on old favorites
Orchestra's Vienna Festival: Haydn and Bruckner
Linda Holt
The second that conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin turned toward the orchestra, Don Liuzzi, chief percussionist, launched an explosive, kick-ass drumroll from the timpani not vaguely implied in Haydn’s direction (a nice steady E-flat, please, with symmetrical crescendo and decrescendo). For a second, I thought we were going to start singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Instead, it was Haydn’s Symphony No. 103 in E-flat major, the “Drumroll,” in the last program in the orchestra’s tribute to Vienna this month.
With this rhythmic wallop, the orchestra stepped into a fresh, invigorating reading of one of the best loved of Haydn’s six London symphonies, composed in 1795 toward the end of his tenure as the teacher to one of Vienna’s most incorrigible young upstarts, a certain Ludwig van Beethoven.
No matter how many times you’ve heard it, there was something new to savor in this performance — unless, of course, you’re an ancient instrument purist or fancier of parlor-sized ensembles (there were about 55 musicians in this reading, none of them shy about being heard). Haydn dull? No way, not with Nézet-Séguin’s baton deflecting our assumptions.
The Haydn was warming, a bit like eating chili peppers when you were expecting mashed potatoes, and proved a great warm-up for the Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 in E-flat major, the “Romantic.” The Fourth Symphony is, like the Haydn, in E-flat major, a key some associate with devotion or communion with God. It is also a large-scale work, some 80 musicians at full tilt for the better part of an hour. Nézet-Séguin’s reading work may not satisfy the more rarefied critics who prefer the stalwarts of the podium (Jochum, Walter, Karajan, et. al.), but it more than satisfied Friday’s audience.
Peaks and murmurs
As for me, someone who first discovered Bruckner on the radio in a snowstorm, Nézet-Séguin’s interpretation, ranging between towering pinnacles of sound and gentle woodland murmurs, opened a floodgate of feeling and dreams. The third movement is a killer: How many times does that soaring sheet of brass — 14 or so gleaming French horns, trumpets, trombones, tuba, more than listed in the program — lift us out of our seats, like the funicular aiming for the top of the Zugspitze?
While the symphony began a little too fast and loud, Nézet-Séguin found his pace quickly enough, providing not only fuel for feeling but also food for thought throughout most of this mesmerizing work. Soloists included Richard Woodhams, whose oboe provided a remarkably silky sound in the midst of the darkly colored second movement, and, again, percussionist Don Liuzzi, who drove the work from its awakening until it folds its wings at day’s end.
Many dislike Bruckner’s music because of the length and Haydn’s because they think it is dull. As the composer Jing Jing Luo said about listening to new music, “Don’t be shy: open your eyes, open your mouth and taste!” That philosophy applies just as well to well-known music that we may have coated over with visions of stagnation. Certainly, the Philadelphians and their audience came to and away from a program of Haydn and Bruckner last week that shattered assumptions and exceeded expectations. It’s possible to interpret and hear timeless music in a new way without betraying composers who have entrusted us with their revelations.
For Victor L. Schermer’s review of the January 13-16 concerts, click here.
For Dan Rottenberg's review of the January 28-30 concerts, click here.
For Victor Schermer’s review of the January 28-30 concerts, click here.
For Steve Cohen's overview of the festival as a whole, click here.
What, When, Where
The Philadelphia Orchestra. Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor. Haydn, Symphony No. 103 in E-flat (“Drumroll”); Bruckner, Symphony No. 4 in E-flat (“Romantic”). January 21 and 22, 2016 at the Kimmel Center, Broad and Spruce Streets, Philadelphia. 215-893-1999 or philorch.com.
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