Orchestra's All-Rachmaninoff concert

I don't know how the first dozen years of the present century will be accounted in music history, but it will have to go some to match the same period in the previous one. The years between 1900 and 1912 were a golden age for the symphony and the concerto alike.

Mahler wrote his last seven symphonies in this span, not to mention Das Lied von der Erde; Sibelius composed three of his seven; Elgar both of his. Elgar and Sibelius both produced their violin concertos, and Busoni his monumental Piano Concerto.

It wasn't a bad age for opera, either: Puccini's Tosca made its debut, as did Richard Strauss's Salome, Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier and Ariadne auf Naxos.

While all this was going on, Arnold Schoenberg, having produced his late Romantic masterpieces Pelléas et Mélisande and Die Gurrelieder, had begun to revolutionize modern music with his Five Pieces, Op. 16 and Pierre Lunaire, while Igor Stravinsky, after warming up with The Firebird, had changed the sound of the modern orchestra for good with Petrouchka.

Oh, yes, and Sergei Rachmaninoff had also produced what many regard as the great post-Romantic symphony, his Second, and the two most popular piano concertos of the 20th Century, the Second and Third.

Plushness and excess?

Few ensembles have had a more celebrated relationship with a composer than the Philadelphia Orchestra with Rachmaninoff. Both Leopold Stokowski and Eugene Ormandy had close relationships with Rachmaninoff, and Philadelphia's local band premiered his last works. The Orchestra has been intimately associated with Rachmaninoff, for better or worse, ever since.

I say worse because Rachmaninoff has also been a byword for Romantic plushness and excess; and the Philadelphia sound, which evolved partly in response to him, has at times been taxed with the same epithets. Rachmaninoff is often taken as the 20th Century's archconservative figure, one who remained proof against the great innovations of his time.

For the Orchestra, he became synonymous with long afternoon concerts that sent dowagers into dreamland. When Riccardo Muti arrived in 1980, he let it be known that he wanted a leaner, tauter sound— and a lot less Rachmaninoff.

The real Stokowski

Muti has been gone for 20 tears now, and things have changed. The Orchestra has fallen on hard times financially— a combination of shrinking audiences, a depressed economy, and moneyed Philadelphians who won't put their hands in their pockets (or a culture that forces great institutions to beg their survival from the rich).

Stokowski is back in vogue— at least the Stokowski of Fantasia. Less mentioned is the fact that he was also an ardent champion of modern music, and that his rupture with the Orchestra resulted in part from his insistence on programming avant-garde work.

All of which brings us to the occasion of this week's Orchestra program.

Rachmaninoff is of course still a staple figure in the repertory of most orchestras, and audiences insist that he be there. Nonetheless, the idea of an all-Rachmaninoff concert is decidedly a blast from the past.

Sugar rush

All-Bach programs, or all-Mozart, or all-Beethoven? Sure. All-Schubert? Maybe, in recital. But two Rachmaninoff warhorses back-to-back? It sounds like a diabetic alert.

Well, no. People may feel a sugar rush when they hear Rachmaninoff, but, I will stoutly argue, it's not in the music itself. If there's anything to be said about Sergei Rachmaninoff, it's that his musical expression is aristocratic to its fingertips. Lyric he may be (no great vice, surely), but sentimental or vulgar, never— not a note.

Even his richest melodies always contain a touch of austerity and restraint, and his inner voices and orchestration are often surprisingly spare. Aristocracy in art doesn't mean sterility or heartlessness; it means emotion channeled through discipline and refinement (which means emotion always accompanied by a tinge of regret). If you want a pure taste of it, I recommend Rachmaninoff.

Unfortunate nickname

On offer at the Kimmel this time was the Rachmaninoff Third Concerto, a roughly 40-minute work, together with the Second Symphony, which— as played here in its original, uncut version— ran slightly over an hour. A near-capacity audience clearly relished every minute.

The conductor was Gianandrea Noseda, a Rachmaninoff specialist with whom the Orchestra seems to have developed particular rapport. The soloist was Denis Matsuev, a stocky, 30-ish Siberian with a thick shock of hair who is closely connected with the Sergei Rachmaninoff Foundation. Absent Stokowski or Ormandy, or Rachmaninoff himself at the keyboard, the stars were aligned about as well as they could be.

The Rach Three, to give it the unfortunate nickname popularized by the movie Shine, is famed for its technical challenges, but among its many notes none are superfluous. Matsuev, in his Philadelphia debut, was rapid but not rushed in his figuration, and quite superb in his tone and execution.

His was a performance very much in the vein of Rachmaninoff himself, with full-bodied technique but a no-nonsense manner and with no concession to mere effects. His standing ovation was very much deserved.

Kim's wave

Noseda, who provided the fine accompaniment, produced an organically unfolding and thoroughly convincing Second Symphony. Although it's full of gorgeous melody, it lacks the single commanding theme that can sometimes unify a long score. But Noseda's command of the music was such that it compelled attention throughout, belying the conventional wisdom that the Second sprawls without cuts.

The Orchestra musicians were in familiar territory, but played with élan as well as polish, and despite the long evening onstage seemed to be fully enjoying themselves. As the audience again responded with enthusiasm, concertmaster David Kim spontaneously waved his bow at the audience behind the stage. It was a good night for all.

A patron speaks

Of course, Rachmaninoff can't be played every week. Leaving the hall, I heard a patron remark, "Well, if they want to fill seats, let them play this and not that atonal stuff!" No doubt the sentiment is shared, perhaps by many.

But Stokowski, showman that he was, understood that you can't have the old without the new. The point of classical music is that it's the cutting edge of musical expression, and great orchestras must serve not only the best of what has been created but also the best of what our own time can produce.

I've often heard orchestras described as museums, shuffling the old masters back and forth. But they're laboratories, too.

Perhaps no one will ever surpass Mozart and Beethoven. But that was true 200 years ago. And who would willingly forgo the achievements of the past two centuries— Rachmaninoff included?♦

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