Yannick and the Orchestra (5th review)

As I drove to last weekend's concert that included Mahler's Fifth Symphony, I listened to the CD with Simon Rattle conducting the same work with the Berlin Philharmonic. This exercise naturally prompted reflections about what might have been.

At the turn of our century Rattle was the front-runner to succeed Wolfgang Sawallisch as the Philadelphia Orchestra's music director. Overtures were made, but Rattle spurned them and accepted, instead, the job as head of the Berlin Philharmonic. When Christoph Eschenbach's tenure hit rough shoals here, some people on the board of the Philadelphia wondered if Rattle might be unhappy in Berlin, hoping that he might still come here.

At that time, Yannick Nézet-Séguin was virtually unknown in these parts.

After listening to Yannick's interpretation barely minutes after hearing Rattle's, I think things might have worked out for the best. As good as Rattle and the Berliners sound in this recording, Yannick's live performance with the Philadelphians was better.

The Philadelphians delivered more presence and more color. Their attacks were more precise and had more impact. This, I am sure, was largely because Nézet-Séguin makes his intentions clear to the musicians. They can see what he wants. There's no confusion or hesitancy about when to dig in and attack a note.

Collective memory

With this confidence, the Orchestra members were able to produce a rich sound that reminded me of its Stokowski and Ormandy eras. Few Orchestra players remain who were in the orchestra during that remarkably long period (1912-1980), but musicians learn from their peers, so that a collective consciousness of sound has been passed along from those previous generations.

Exactly how Nézet-Séguin communicates his intentions is a bit of a mystery, because his gestures are relatively conventional: broad and expressive but not idiosyncratic. When I was young, I (and many of my friends) would imitate Fritz Reiner's conducting, with his little square boxes, or Stokowski's with his sculpting hands. Or Ormandy's with his elbow action. Or Bernstein's cheerleading. Nézet-Séguin's mannerisms don't lend themselves easily to such categorization.

Yet in the short time Yannick has worked with these players, he is getting results. In his first rehearsal of the Mahler, Yannick ran through the first two movements without stopping, and the musicians say that it sounded like a concert performance. As Peter Burwasser wrote in BSR, the orchestra's sound bloomed.

Fast or slow?

Analysis of his interpretations is equally elusive. For example, Burwasser wrote that Yannick's tempi were "a shade on the slow side," while Victor L. Schermer, also in BSR, categorizes Yannick's leading of the Mahler Fifth as "fast-paced... at a rapid clip."

In fact, Nézet-Séguin took one hour and 13 minutes for the Mahler Fifth, compared to Rattle's one hour and nine minutes on my CD. When Michael Tilson Thomas led the piece with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 2008, he took one hour and 14 minutes.

This comparison suggests that each critic's judgment is subjective, even when something is objectively measurable. Most of us who have written about this concert seem unanimous about its excellence (although my BSR colleague Robert Zaller expressed some reservations). That in itself is impressive.

Birthplace matters

Everyone from the public to the musicians to the maestro wants this appointment to work out well. One of the good things about Nézet-Séguin is that he wasn't coy or standoffish when the possibility of this position was mentioned, unlike the reluctance of Rattle and Vladimir Jurowski. Those are talented men, and I look forward to many guest engagements with them, while I'm happy to have the ebullient Nézet-Séguin as our "permanent" music director.

Nézet-Séguin, by the way, is the first native-born North American (born and raised in Montreal) to head the Philadelphia Orchestra. This tidbit may help explain his eagerness to please, and his easygoing ability to relate to American audiences and musicians. .♦


To read another review by Peter Burwasser, click here.
To read another review by Dan Coren, click here.
To read another review by Victor L. Schermer, click here.
To read another review by Robert Zaller, click here.