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Orchestra sans Muti
Jarvi (not Muti) takes command
LEWIS WHITTINGTON
Chunks of empty seats in Verizon Hall probably reflected audience disappointment at Riccardo Muti’s cancelled appearances with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Less than a week before the maestro’s heralded return to Philadelphia, the Orchestra’s press office announced that Muti had cancelled due to the flu and wouldn’t reschedule his run.
The concerts went on without him under the baton of Neeme Järvi, who proved a most capable replacement. What he lacked in hair power, Järvi made up for in maestro-strokes, eliciting forceful elegance from the full orchestra.
The rousing opener, Franz Schubert’s Rosamunde overture, banished any Muti-less onus as Järvi took unfussy, authoritative command, immediately conveying the message that this was still all about the music. Next, the orchestra dug in to Schubert’s Symphony No. 4 (Tragic), flowing forth with detailed transitions to build a textured drama.
In Death and Transfiguration, Jarvi turned Richard Strauss's epochal tone poem into rolling thunder instead of beatified torpor. The Orchestra exploded with a sonic clarity that (for once) shook the timber in Verizon Hall.
Järvi displayed the most invention and orchestral vision in Paul Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber, replacing for this program another list work by Hindemith. Järvi used not only his baton but also his shoulder shrugs, which seemed addressed to some of the composer’s deeper rhythmic tension in the work‘s jazz subtext. His low-waving baton stoked the Orchestra’s basso sonority and let those rogue trombones cut loose.
LEWIS WHITTINGTON
Chunks of empty seats in Verizon Hall probably reflected audience disappointment at Riccardo Muti’s cancelled appearances with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Less than a week before the maestro’s heralded return to Philadelphia, the Orchestra’s press office announced that Muti had cancelled due to the flu and wouldn’t reschedule his run.
The concerts went on without him under the baton of Neeme Järvi, who proved a most capable replacement. What he lacked in hair power, Järvi made up for in maestro-strokes, eliciting forceful elegance from the full orchestra.
The rousing opener, Franz Schubert’s Rosamunde overture, banished any Muti-less onus as Järvi took unfussy, authoritative command, immediately conveying the message that this was still all about the music. Next, the orchestra dug in to Schubert’s Symphony No. 4 (Tragic), flowing forth with detailed transitions to build a textured drama.
In Death and Transfiguration, Jarvi turned Richard Strauss's epochal tone poem into rolling thunder instead of beatified torpor. The Orchestra exploded with a sonic clarity that (for once) shook the timber in Verizon Hall.
Järvi displayed the most invention and orchestral vision in Paul Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber, replacing for this program another list work by Hindemith. Järvi used not only his baton but also his shoulder shrugs, which seemed addressed to some of the composer’s deeper rhythmic tension in the work‘s jazz subtext. His low-waving baton stoked the Orchestra’s basso sonority and let those rogue trombones cut loose.
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