Rhorer conducts Chamber Orchestra

Here comes the 'Solzhenitsyn Generation'

TOM PURDOM

One of the pleasures of Ignat Solzhenitsyn’s tenure as director of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia is the parade of young performers he’s brought to Philadelphia. Presumably he’s met musicians in his own age group (he’s 35) in the course of his travels as a pianist and guest conductor.

Solzhenitsyn’s latest find is the 35-year-old French conductor Jeremie Rhorer. Rhorer currently works with a French period instrument orchestra, and he has also directed a chamber orchestra that concentrated on contemporary music.

For his Philadelphia debut, Rhorer presided over a lesson in the art of playing French music. I’ve heard a number of good performances of the opening 18th-Century suite by Rameau, but this one was led by someone who obviously feels that sparkle, grace, and élan are serious virtues. The marches were so light and graceful they sounded like minuets. The minuets themselves bounced with gaiety.

But there was more to Rhorer’s work than a simple rapport with composers who share the values of his national culture. In the question-and-answer session that followed the concert, Rhorer discussed some of the elements of French Baroque style that he’d applied to the Rameau suite. In addition to using ornaments specific to French music, he said, he had taken the nature of the Baroque bow into account. Baroque violinists manipulated a bow that looked a lot like an archer’s bow. It tended to sound weaker at the top of the stroke, and Rhorer had worked on that kind of strong/weak bowing with the Chamber Orchestra musicians.

He also had his own take on the Great Vibrato Controversy. Many early music devotees maintain that vibrato is a modern development and consequently period instrument groups should never use it. Rhorer feels Baroque musicians must have used some vibrato, but he limits it to the stronger notes.

A harpist, perfectly framed

Rhorer’s knowledge of Baroque style could explain some of the special quality of his work. But it obviously couldn’t apply to the two pieces in the middle of the program. A prominent local representative of the Solzhenitsyn Generation, Elizabeth Hainen, soloed in two works for harp and orchestra— an early-19th-Century concerto by Pierre Boieldieu, and Debussy’s Danses sacrées et profane.

At this point in her career, one can assume the Philadelphia Orchestra’s principal harp will turn in a classy performance. The real news was the quality of the orchestral accompaniment— probably the best Hainen has ever experienced.

I’ve heard the Debussy many times, but it never sounded like this. Again, Rhorer conducted as if he understood the exact shading that every passage required. The orchestra created a perfect frame and background for Hainen’s solo part.

The Debussy is a continuous display of musical inventiveness, with developments in orchestration and musical material that keep it moving in new directions from the first notes to the finish line. The Boieldieu is enjoyable, but the composer didn’t create the kind of spectacular harp part other composers have managed to produce for the instrument. The solo part didn’t generate any excitement until the last movement.

Little known in America

The limitations of the Boieldieu may be related to its period. In her post-concert remarks, Hainen noted that the concerto is a demanding piece for the soloist because it was written in a keyboard style. It was composed at a time when title pages still indicated a work could be played on piano, harp or harpsichord.

Her other comments provided some welcome relief for a reviewer who had been confronted with a serious challenge to his critical omniscience. I had never heard of the Boieldieu before I received the Chamber Orchestra’s season brochures. For me, the harp concerto repertoire consists of Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp, the concerto by Alberto Ginastera that Eugene Ormandy premiered here in Philadelphia in 1965, and a lively romp by the African-American composer William Grant Still. When I looked up the Boieldieu on the web, I was mortified to discover it is considered the peak of the genre.

Fortunately, Ms. Hainen was kind enough to note that the Boieldieu concerto has hardly ever been performed in the U.S., even though it’s highly regarded in Europe. This was, in fact, the first time she had played it.

One small flaw

The concert’s only serious weakness was Rhorer’s decision to program another Rameau opera suite at the end. The two opuses were so similar that the second suite sounded like a repeat of the opener.

The second suite could have benefited from some pruning as well. Conductors can select from a long menu of possible numbers when they play the Rameau suites, and Rhorer picked 15 for the finale-- a 50% increase over the ten he led in the opener.

But that was a minor flaw, a small comedown after the peak Rhorer achieved with the Debussy. Add Jeremie Rohrer to the catalog of first-class American and European young conductors who have lit up the Perelman in the last two seasons. The future of the music world is in good hands.



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