In
the middle of September, the much-anticipated arrival of Hurricane Isabel
to the Philadelphia region proved a bit of a disappointment, with neither
rains nor winds reaching anywhere near their forecast levels. About
the same time, Hurricane Christoph arrived to begin his tenure as the
seventh music director in the history of the Philadelphia Orchestra,
and thus far he has not fizzled out, nor disappointed. Programming during
his first four weeks heavy doses of music composed during this and the
previous centuries, Eschenbach is thus far delivering on his promise
to shake Philadelphia from its deep musical conservatism. The Sawallisch
era is definitely over.
Last
year’s transition period felt more unsettled to me than public and official
consensus about it let on. In some ways, the guest conductors were more
consistently reliable than the two music directors, featuring Osmo Vänska
in a get-acquainted US tour that seemed to suggest he does not intend
to stay too long in Minnesota and Christoph von Dohnanyi taking an extended
victory lap around the Big Five after his tenure in Cleveland. Vänska
chose a composer the Orchestra has been known to dislike in the past,
Nielsen (the 3rd, so fun to hear and so unrewarding for the musicians
to play!), while Dohnanyi wisely chose the Official Music of the Philadelphia
Orchestra, the Brahms 2nd Symphony, and produced a typically Dohnanyi
rendition: crisp rhythms, alert playing from all and an astonishing
sense of pacing and structural development. (Can he please return very
soon?) Between the incoming and outgoing directors there were actually
few weeks for guest conductors, which perhaps made it even more perplexing
why Roberto Abbado continues to receive as much time from the Philadelphia
Orchestra as he has. Sawallisch, as the year wound down, occasionally
conducted from a stool and was bothered increasingly by problems with
low blood pressure, not the first serious medical problems he has had
in recent years. Indeed, while Sawallisch usually rallied during performances,
something deep inside him seem to be letting go as the end of his directorship
approached. Reports have him still in less than ideal condition; we
wonder whether he will in fact be able to return in January to commence
his position as Laureate. Aside from concern about the welfare of this
incredibly decent man and wonderful musician, I think it would be helpful
for the Orchestra to remain connected to the more sober, centered music-making
than they experience under their very excitable new director.
Eschenbach,
for his part, did less to quiet doubts about his more willful interpretations,
with more herky-jerky Brahms (which he, alas, continues into this year)
and a Mendelssohn Reformation Symphony that at times seemed like an
athletic contest. In his first two (of six) appearances, he seemed to
be pressing, conducting in such a frenetically physical manner that
I sometimes wondered whether he hurt himself. And yet, there were considerable
triumphs: he seems a remarkable Stravinsky conductor, with a magnificent
Rite of Spring that was individual without being idiosyncratic
and a romantic Symphony of Psalms that left me quite surprised
and stirred. Indeed, while Eschenbach has been packaged as a forward-looking
maestro steeped in the German tradition, his greatest strengths seem
to lie in the French and Russian repertoires. The latter makes him more
appropriate for Philadelphia, as it has, to my ears, over the decades
played Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich to greater effect than
any group in North America. Indeed, his greatest triumph during the
transition year was a white-hot Shostakovich 5th that musicians felt
was their best Carnegie Hall performance in years. By that point, Eschenbach
had begun visibly to settle down and the more excessive physicality
began to disappear. What will be interesting to watch and hear is whether
Eschenbach, as he works consistently and regularly with a superior orchestra,
grows as a conductor as did Dohnanyi did in Cleveland.
The
trend has continued through the beginning of this year’s season. Eschenbach
seems more centered, calmer and the Orchestra is responding with a marvelously
clear and warm (their trademark) sound. French music, even modern French
music, has been and will be, at the core of this season’s programming,
with a stress on Messiaen, a composer Philadelphia has scandalously
ignored. Last week Eschenbach, possibly rewarding his most public supporter
at his controversial appointment, Principal Violist Roberto Diaz, led
Berlioz’ Harold in Italy, beautifully shaped and individually
characterized by both violist and conductor. This week Eschenbach launched
himself into Turangalila in an utterly rapturously embodied performance,
presented in an original and innovative framework. Sensitive to Messiean’s
fusion of European and Asian music, Eschenbach prefaced Turangalila
with a performance by a local Balinese Gamelan Orchestra. Aside from
the educational value of learning about Balinese music and its influence
on Messiaen, the program returned the audience’s ears and, clichés
aside, Messiaen sounded suddenly more familiar and approachable. I think
the experience might have also had an effect on the Philadelphia Orchestra
percussion section, as their contribution to the Messiaen evoked the
Gamelan style much more convincingly than in other performances I have
heard (all, alas, on recordings).
Philadelphia
Orchestra musicians have never been known for their enthusiastic embrace
of newer music, but with their new director, the first since Stokowski
to advocate modernity with a passion, enthusiastically pulling them
along with him, these musicians performed Messiaen with an ardor they
normally reserve for Brahms. With each section audible and coherently
related to each other most of the time, Eschenbach had this huge beast
tamed, barely, resulting in music that was both tense and luxuriant,
the famous Philadelphia Sound being applied concisely to the mystical
reveries of Olivier Messiaen.
As
the final huge, glorious crescendo of Turangalila ended, the
audience stood and cheered, perhaps the most remarkable event of the
evening. I presume that a fair chunk of the die-hard suburban traditionalist
crowd had already exchanged their subscription tickets for the next
Tchaikovsky 5th, and this was thus not a typical Saturday evening crowd,
but younger and more urban. But this crowd did prove to me once again
that there is a more substantial audience for newer music in Philadelphia
than the Orchestra management and traditional audience have believed.
Whether the management is willing to endure, at some point, a slight,
temporary, downturn in sales as the old audience leaves and the new
audience isn’t fully there yet remains to be seen. The recent gift of
$50 million (nailed down by Eschenbach himself) to the Orchestra endowment
from the estate of Walter Annenberg should go a long way to smoothing
that transition. Though I’m not sure that "smooth" will ever
be an adjective applied to Eschenbach, nor one to which he aspires.
After
next week, Eschenbach retreats to Paris for a few months, succeeded
by several guest conductors, Sawallisch (we hope) and Simon Rattle’s
bi-annual three-week visit. Rattle now seems to be packaged, with his
consent, as part of a team with Eschenbach, as his sole North American
engagement, which raises the question of why Rattle has not yet been
made Principal Guest Conductor. Rattle, who allegedly turned Philadelphia
down because of his reluctance to do fundraising and the social events,
is leading the Orchestra in the main social event of the Philadelphia
society season, the annual Academy Ball; I sometimes wonder whether
Rattle has here decided to have all of the advantages of leading a top
American band with none of the disadvantages. It is, by the way, Rattle’s
turn to lead the Annual Performance of the Official Music of the Philadelphia
Orchestra (see above). In any case, Eschenbach returns in February for
more Messiaen and to launch a multi-year pursuit of the complete works
of Gustav Mahler. And he leads a concert with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra
(a group he manages to praise at every turn) in Schoenberg and Webern,
among myriad other activities, both musical and otherwise. I can’t wait
(and I never would have expected to say that three years ago). Thus
begins the Eschenbach era. Blow winds, blow…
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