September 2014 Hot News

 23 September 2014

                    The conductor Alan Gilbert, exuding excitement, looked almost relieved to be on the stage of Avery Fisher Hall with the musicians of the New York Philharmonic on Tuesday night. The occasion was the first of the orchestra’s subscription series programs this season, offering the American premiere of Unsuk Chin’s haunting Clarinet Concerto and a formidable account of Mahler’s First Symphony.

                  Just a week earlier, Mr. Gilbert had been on that stage for the Philharmonic’s opening-night gala, “La Dolce Vita,” a star-studded and superficial tribute to music from Italian cinema. That wasted program, videotaped by public television for later broadcast, was the official start of the Philharmonic’s season.

                 On Tuesday, though, from the moment Mr. Gilbert took microphone in hand to welcome the audience and discuss Ms. Chin’s concerto, he was in his element. The concert was terrific.

                Ms. Chin, 53, best known for her boldly inventive opera “Alice in Wonderland,” was born and educated in South Korea. She traveled to Germany in the mid-1980s to study with the modernist master Gyorgy Ligeti and has lived there since. When Mr. Gilbert, as he told the audience, learned that Ms. Chin was writing a concerto for the brilliant Finnish clarinetist Kari Kriikku, he wanted the Philharmonic “to get in” on that commission, as he explained. The piece was eventually commissioned by five orchestras, including the Gothenburg Symphony in Sweden, where Mr. Kriikku played the premiere in May.

              Before performing the piece, Mr. Gilbert was joined onstage by Mr. Kriikku to play excerpts and discuss some of the special clarinet techniques the score calls for. Mr. Gilbert has always been very good at explaining music to audiences, especially when dealing with a challenging new work. Most listeners seemed engaged by the discussion and applauded after excerpts were played. More of this should happen at all concerts.

             Ms. Chin often tries to render in sound the visions, colors and images of her dreams. And as she explained in a recent interview with The New York Times, she is fascinated by technical virtuosity, though not the conventional kind.

            This concerto, especially at the opening of the slow movement, titled “Hymnos,” used the technique of multiphonics, in which the clarinetist, through special fingerings and a way of blowing into the instrument, can produce more than one note at a time. Mr. Kriikku demonstrated by playing the ethereal solo that opens the movement, which sounded like two distant voices mingling in a pungent blend of chanting and sighing. Mr. Gilbert also highlighted passages that have the allure of Asian folk music, though he explained that Ms. Chin writes her own cryptic kind of folkloric tunes. And, for contrast, Mr. Kriikku and the orchestra played some of the slashing outbursts that form the intense climax of the first movement.

           Then the 25-minute concerto was performed. At the opening, the solo clarinet plays breathy, staggered phrases, soon joined by quizzical stirrings in the orchestra. The effect is not spooky, but spellbinding. The music unfolds in fits and starts, with the clarinet breaking loose like some avant-garde jazz improviser, and the orchestra erupting in dense chords that sound like drive-by whooshes.

           The last movement, true to its title, “Improvisation on a Groove,” is fractured, restless and brash. Mr. Kriikku, backed by Mr. Gilbert and the impressive orchestra, gave a vivid, colorful and technically stunning account of this elusive concerto. Ms. Chin received a rousing ovation when she came onstage.

           Mr. Gilbert conducted Mahler’s First Symphony from memory with unflagging stamina and command. Those who like their Mahler played for a maximum of drama and mystery might have found this performance lacking. But it was refreshing to hear the work conducted with such attention to revealing inner details and overall structure. I have seldom heard the score played with more rhythmic vigor, incisive attack and surging energy, especially in the finale, in which Mr. Gilbert drew brassy, triumphant playing from the Philharmonic. The audience responded with an ardent standing ovation.

          So why was this concert not the official opening of the Philharmonic’s season? Where were the public television cameras?