This writer does not remember hearing more spirited interpretations of Haydn Symphonies (Nos. 48 in C Major, “Maria Theresa,” and 99 in E-flat Major) than those Guest Conductor Alan Gilbert’ led at Symphony Hall last night. Nor have we witnessed a more skillful and exciting performance of the-difficult-to-put-across Stravinsky Violin Concerto than Isabelle Faust’s.
Stravinsky steered away from the typical romantic concerto — striving instead for a Brandenburg Concerto like structure in which the solo violinist is first among equals. The piece even ends with a duet with the concertmaster. Stravinsky employed a full orchestra, replete with a full set of strings, a much larger bunch than the Les Siecles. And yes, the logical program sandwiched two classically shaped Haydn symphonies around a quasi-Brandenburg Concerto. But whatever Stravinsky’s neoclassical pretensions, his concerto resembles those of Berg, Prokofiev, and Bartok more than Bach’s or Vivaldi’s. Still, the programmatic concept worked. Gilbert, like Szell or Beecham, used a full orchestra, but let it with the awareness that Haydn’s grandeur was certainly closer to that of early Beethoven than to Brahms or Strauss. Gilbert may not have been in the Francis-Xavier Roth mold, but his direction of the orchestra was, shall we say, informed by period-instrument knowledge. He did not conduct the piece as Ormandy would have, but he sounded more comfortable with Haydn than Nelsons does. The Concerto has been performed on at least four previous BSO programs. Haydn’s No. 48 was making its first appearance.
One of the most admired violinists today, the 52-year-old German Isabelle Faust is frequent guest soloist with the world’s great orchestras (including several appearances with the BSO); her extraordinarily varied discography, which ranges expertly and effortlessly through four centuries of music, is deservedly acclaimed. It’s interesting that even the fiddlers that I knew in the audience did not recognize her encore. Some guessed it was one of the movements from Bach’s Partitas and Sonatas for solo violin; others guessed it was Eugéne Ysaÿe channeling Bach’s spirit. Actually, it turned out to be someone that Bach might have channeled, Nicola Matteis (1650-1713)—his Fantasia in A Minor from Book II of his Ayres for the Violin.
Faust’s recording of the Stravinsky Concerto with conductor Francois-Xavier Roth and his Les Siecles ensemble is considered among the best ever. Last night she certainly made me enjoy the concerto more than ever. Her supremely confident bowing in the concerto’s opening chord illuminated not only the first movement Toccata, which moved with irresistible rhythmic momentum, but she also infected the subsequent three movements (Aria I, Aria II and Pastorale) in many marvelous ways.
Faust’s clarity, gutsy depth, and technical brilliance came as no surprise, she just delivered a complete package with even more abundance than I had expected.
The unfailing mastery and command of Gilbert’s orchestral leadership should not have surprised me either. His impressive credentials: New York Philharmonic’s music director for eight years (2009-17), appearances with every important orchestra from Berlin to Tokyo (including several guest appearances with BSO, dating back to 1999) and his current status as music director of Hamburg’s NDR Philharmonic Orchestra and the Royal Swedish Opera and the principal guest conductor of what is perhaps the greatest orchestra in Asia, the Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra. Having heard him conduct only once before, and that almost 30 years ago, is my loss.
In October of 1996, the principal guest conductor of the Baltimore Symphony had been injured in an automobile accident on the day before the first rehearsal for that week’s subscription program, which consisted of the Brahms Second Piano Concerto and Schumann’s Symphony No. 2. Gilbert, then the newly appointed Associate Conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra showed up as a last-minute substitution. He arrived the evening before the first rehearsal, looking like a skinny kid who had not yet begun to shave. (He was 28 but looked much younger.) On only 24-hour notice, he would be conducting the massive Brahms Second Concerto and Schumann’s Second Symphony, which is ― particularly in its slow third movement ― a nightmare in sound that can be compared to walking through a minefield blindfolded.
But he led a cogently argued and beautifully detailed interpretations of the Schumann Symphony. And Gilbert, who was conducting the Brahms Concerto for only the second time in his career, did a fine job in supporting the lithe and subtle interpretation of the pianist, Horacio Gutierrez. The musicians in the orchestra were enthusiastic about Gilbert; Gutierrez called him “a major talent.”
Gilbert, who no longer looks like a skinny kid, and the orchestra could not have given Faust a better accompaniment. They created instrumental colors with clear articulation — particularly the wind sections — and exquisitely rendered transparent textures that made Faust feel freeShe delivered incisively in the spiky and rhythmically driven outer movements and dispatched the two Arias with dreamy lyricism.
Haydn’s symphonies tend to be taken for granted, but they do not play themselves; last night Gilbert and the BSO gave wonderful performances of two. Why No.48 bears the name “Maria Theresa”constitutes a mystery, but no one can gainsay the festive joy which fills it. The wind playing, particularly from the oboes and horns, was amazing, almost wild. Jan Stafford described the final movement as “a dashing romp [in which] winds and strings pass zippy figures back and forth.”
The much more familiar Symphony No. 99 felt like a joyous revelation. Even though George Szell had been dead for more than a quarter of a century when Gilbert made his debut in Baltimore, the latter’s conducting on that occasion and on Thursday evening had something about it that reminded me of Szell: flawless ensemble work, immaculate t shaping of structures, and top-down-drive leading to infectious outward energy. I can’t think of a more gifted American-born-and-trained conductor.