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Philadelphia Orchestra with André Watts
Extra Wattage
LEWIS WHITINGTON
You know something special is happening when the orchestral acoustics on the floor of Verizon Hall produce multiple dimensions. The man who unlocked those sound barriers was pianist Andre Watts, in a penetrating reading of the Brahms Piano Concerto #2 with the Philadelphia Orchestra for a Friday matinee performance.
Watts dispatches Brahms’ chord density and finger flights with a clarity that’s crisp without sounding sterile, leaving all the romanticism for the orchestra. It’s like watching Olivier play Hamlet so well that the rest of the production becomes merely a backdrop. Always the technician, Watts illuminates the more subtle interiors within the large melodic structures of this work, at the same time not ignoring the work‘s theatricality.
To his credit, maestro Christoph Eschenbach kept the symphonic gush poised and understated, further strengthening Brahms’s vaulting progressions. Principal cello Hai-Ye Ni was a supple foil in the third movement, elegantly framing Watts’s potent performance.
The same control didn’t extend to Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique. The only thing to do with the oozing romanticism in the Pathetique is to let is wash unadorned over the concert hall. But the full orchestra pitched and waned like a ship with torn sails trying to stay afloat on sonic soup.
The symphonic bigness here was less majestic fireworks and more bombastically sterile melodrama. Tchaikovsky’s famed crescendos burst in diminishing climaxes as well as one outright misfire. Maestro Eschenbach seemed dazed under the orchestral storm to the point where all focus was lost. I think I saw Pyotr going down with the ship. Again.
To view a response, click here.
LEWIS WHITINGTON
You know something special is happening when the orchestral acoustics on the floor of Verizon Hall produce multiple dimensions. The man who unlocked those sound barriers was pianist Andre Watts, in a penetrating reading of the Brahms Piano Concerto #2 with the Philadelphia Orchestra for a Friday matinee performance.
Watts dispatches Brahms’ chord density and finger flights with a clarity that’s crisp without sounding sterile, leaving all the romanticism for the orchestra. It’s like watching Olivier play Hamlet so well that the rest of the production becomes merely a backdrop. Always the technician, Watts illuminates the more subtle interiors within the large melodic structures of this work, at the same time not ignoring the work‘s theatricality.
To his credit, maestro Christoph Eschenbach kept the symphonic gush poised and understated, further strengthening Brahms’s vaulting progressions. Principal cello Hai-Ye Ni was a supple foil in the third movement, elegantly framing Watts’s potent performance.
The same control didn’t extend to Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique. The only thing to do with the oozing romanticism in the Pathetique is to let is wash unadorned over the concert hall. But the full orchestra pitched and waned like a ship with torn sails trying to stay afloat on sonic soup.
The symphonic bigness here was less majestic fireworks and more bombastically sterile melodrama. Tchaikovsky’s famed crescendos burst in diminishing climaxes as well as one outright misfire. Maestro Eschenbach seemed dazed under the orchestral storm to the point where all focus was lost. I think I saw Pyotr going down with the ship. Again.
To view a response, click here.
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