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Copland, Carter, Bernstein and Rouse: Michelle DeYoung (mezzo-soprano), Steven Stucky (host), David Robertson (conductor), New York Philharmonic. Avery Fisher Hall, New York City, 1.11.2008 (BH)

Copland: Appalachian Spring (complete ballet score, 1943-44)
Elliott Carter: Of Rewaking: Three Poems of William Carlos Williams, for Mezzo-soprano and Orchestra (2002)
Bernstein: Symphony No. 1, Jeremiah (1942)
Christopher Rouse: Rapture (2001)


Pairing two American works written just a year apart in the early 1940s with two from the early 21st century, conductor David Robertson made this fascinating evening with the New York Philharmonic a concert to savor.  Transparency was the order of the day for Copland's complete Appalachian Spring, with Robertson coaxing a richly blended texture in the strings, and a crisp, pungent alertness overall, with the score leaping off the page.  As familiar as this music is to many listeners, it is refreshing to encounter a conductor who doesn't take it for granted.  And notably, the orchestra produced more thrilling pianissimos than usual, adding more clout to those moments when Copland's voice breaks free in joy.

Elliott Carter's Of Rewaking is a big score, written when the composer was a peppy 93.  In a short film before the performance, Steven Stucky interviewed the soon-to-be-centenarian about the texts by William Carlos Williams.  Carter mentioned the rose, an image that appears in the first and third poems ("The Rewaking" and "Shadows"), linking it to the "life of the imagination."  The second poem, "Lear," describes "storms at sea, storms in people's lives."  By the standards of Carter's late work, the songs have a monumental quality, scored for an orchestra with a large percussion contingent and piano.  Michelle DeYoung, towering over the orchestra, gave a Wagnerian heft to Carter's elegant vocal writing, and many instrumental effects were memorable, such as the fat, torrential chords at the end of "Lear" that seemed to ricochet around the hall.

Leonard Bernstein's First Symphony was a huge success when it appeared, receiving multiple performances by orchestras around the world in the following years.  Written by the 24-year-old composer after his studies with Koussevitzky, Bernstein wrote that his intent was emotional, not programmatic, and the score joins three disparate sections with a visceral impact.  A brutal, two-note motif is at the core of "Prophecy," followed by the jazzy, cymbals-heavy "Profanation," and ending with "Lamentation," (text from The Lamentations of Jeremiah) sung by Ms. DeYoung with stirring ardor.

The concert closed with Christopher Rouse's Rapture, which begins with quiet sounds from the orchestra's lower instruments, and slowly gathers momentum rhythmically and harmonically, leading to a brilliantly ecstatic conclusion.  It is difficult to recall a New York Philharmonic concert that ended with piece written so recently (2001), but if the noisy audience reaction can be trusted, Robertson made exactly the right call.

Bruce Hodges


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