Philadelphia Orchestra presents 'French Tales' (second review)

Three popular French tone poems on eerie subjects made up the first half of the program. And I don’t use the word eerie lightly: Camille Saint-Saëns’s spooky Danse Macabre is based on a poem by Henri Cazalis (1840-1909) that should be flagged for parental guidance, as exemplified in these excerpts (which I have loosely translated from the French):

Zig, zag, ziggy, Death swaggering in rhythm / Grinds his heel into a gravestone, / scrapes a dance tune on his violin...

The winter wind is raging, the night is dark / Moans seethe out of the lime trees as / Bleached skeletons frolic through the shadows, / Running and leaping under their big flapping shrouds.

Bodies writhing, we hear the clacking bones of the dancers, / A lascivious pair sits on dank moss, / Ready to savor old sweets… / A veil has fallen! The dancer is nude! / Her partner squeezes her lustfully...

Tricks and treats

That’s not exactly bobbing for apples. It’s tempting to just let these tone poems course familiarly through the ears, conjuring images of Mickey Mouse and Looney Tunes, but the tales they are based on are surprisingly terrifying.

The program's second tone poem, César Franck’s The Accursed Huntsman, is a similarly provocative mix of luxurious tonal colors and hair-raising references to medieval legends, including the Wild Hunt archetype.

Here, a count from the Rhineland is deviled by furies for all eternity for the crime of hunting on Sunday (they took their Blue Laws seriously back then). Langrée’s wonderful interpretation brought out every instrument in the orchestra and every musical line or vignette, even in the thunderous replication of the demonic pursuit, without losing a scrap of structural integrity.

The Philadelphians concluded the trilogy with Paul Dukas’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the lightest and least traumatizing of the three tone poems. Or is it? The images sealed onto our minds from Disney's Fantasia crackle and fall away like a snake’s skin when we read Goethe's poem in all its gothic menace.

What is that broom anyway? The split of consciousness into ego and id? “Back into your closet, broom!” the wizard commands. “Be as you were in reserve / Until I—the authentic master!—summon you forth, only me to serve!” This tone poem features some splendid orchestral effects, memorably Daniel Matsukawa on the bassoon.

Aural feast

The second half of the program was devoted to the music of Maurice Ravel (1875-1937). Pianist Kirill Gerstein, who debuted with this orchestra in 2007, was simply spectacular in Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major. A champion and frequent performer of new music, Gerstein has the skill and sensibility to infuse classical complexity with jazz spirit, a combination fraught with pitfalls. This goes for the orchestra as well.

Although not rooted in horror like the three tone poems, the work does start with the crack of a whip. Having demanded our attention, it develops its thematic materials with imagination and high spirits for some 20 riveting minutes.

This work is a feast for hungry ears, as Ravel drops unexpected blue notes among soul-stirring sonorities, even phrases of limpid melancholy in the harp. Through it all, Gerstein caressed the keys and segued into a honky-tonk style with a sense of natural inevitability, joining the orchestra at the end of the first movement in one of the most cheerful descending scales in the repertoire.

Gerstein brought a childlike purity of sound to the dreamy second movement, playing several short duets with first-chair musicians. The work ended on a bright jazzy note, followed by Langrée encouraging bows from just about every principal.

The concert ended in a blaze of glory with Ravel’s heavenly Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2, taken from Part III of the original ballet. This performance was instrumental, but Langrée crafted the soundscape so elegantly that a chorus was not missed. In fact, I found myself enjoying the instrumental balance even more, noticing Ravel’s mastery of effects with key changes and dynamics.

Perhaps it was not intended to be taken this way, but the work’s opening passages capture a sense of the rising sun, with dawn flooding the awakening world with light. The final euphoria, which the program notes describe as an orgiastic bacchanal, strikes me as pure ecstasy: not a depiction of ecstasy but the thing itself. Again, Langrée brought clear articulation and a sense of delight to all his work here, and he had an orchestra in full assent.

To read Cameron Kelsall's review, click here.