New York Philharmonic – Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor; Leila Josefowicz, violin. November 5, 2013.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.  Second Tier Box Rear (Box 20F, Seat 16, $0).

Program

Suite from Ma Mere l’Oye (Mother Goose, 1908-10; orch. 1911) by Ravel (1875-1937).

Violin Concerto (2008-09) by Esa-Pekka Salonen (b. 1958).

Symphony No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 82 (1912-19) by Sibelius (1865-1957).

I got an E-club mailing from New York Philharmonic when I was in Asia and talked to Anne every now and then about going for those discount tickets.  By the time we decided to go, it was this past Sunday.  The code we were given didn’t work, so we gave up on the concert.  Anne met up with CS Monday and talked about it, and he managed to get us two complimentary tickets.  One reason why seats were available this close to the concert probably was because the program was repeated on five different days; tonight’s concert was quite well attended, not sure how many of them were free or discounted, though.  Anne’s seat and mine were at opposite sides of the Second Tier, I moved to an empty seat next to hers after the intermission.

The only piece I had heard before – several times - was the Ravel Mother Goose piece, and I blogged about those performances.  It is a good thing I didn’t read those reviews beforehand; they may have biased me into thinking this would be another so-so piece.  Perhaps it was the detailed notes in the Playbill, maybe I was paying more attention, or it might be simply a better performance.  I enjoyed the piece as I followed along its description in the Playbill.  The original work was written for two youngsters (the children that premiered it were aged 7 and 8), but the orchestrated version needed a good ensemble to perform properly, which New York Phil certainly did tonight.  The five movements of the Suite are: Pavane of the Sleeping Beauty; Tom Thumb; Laideronnette, Empress of the Pagodas; Conversations of Beauty and the Beast; and Apotheosis, The Enchanted Garden.

The New York Phil website and the Playbill have a lot to say about the Salonen violin concerto.  After listening to it, Anne was amazed that such a complex piece could be played from memory, I was simply amazed.

Of all the modern violin pieces (one by Dutilleux comes to mind), this certainly is much easier to appreciate and enjoy on the first hearing.  While I didn’t catch any singable tunes in the piece, it sounded very tonal.  And the speed was simply unbelievable in some places.  It certainly demands a lot from the performer, but only asks for a limited set of virtuosic skills from her.  Nothing to be sneered at: the double stops, interval jumps and harmonics were mesmerizing.  However, I didn’t catch a lot of spiccatos or left-hand pizzicatos.

Had it not been for the detailed notes provided by Salonen, I would have been quite lost.  The piece has four movements: Mirage, Pulse I, Pulse II, and Adieu.  Several interesting facts from the writeup: (i) the piece begins with the violin sounding as if the music had been going on for some time already; (ii) in Mirage, all movement stops on the note D, (iii) Something very Californian in all this; and (iv) I felt confused.  Many of Salonen’s compositions have been proven to be quite popular, and this will probably be one of them.  While the piece certainly has its distinctive characteristics, for some reason at times I felt I was listening to Philip Glass, on steroids.  I also heard Salonen’s piano concerto a few years back.  A review of that blog indicates I wasn’t as impressed by that piece, although there are many parallels to how I feel about the two concertos.

This is the first time I saw Leila Josefowicz play; Anne thought she is heard quite frequently on WQXR.  She certainly sounded amazing, with impeccable techniques, and was very into the piece, even this was the fifth and last performance of the series.  She looked very young from my seat in Tier 2 (she’s 36), and is quite popular among composers.  I wonder how she would sound playing a more “traditional” piece.  She played a short encore that – alas – called for similar techniques as the Salonen concerto.

Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony was written as a commission by the Finnish Government to mark the composer’s fiftieth birthday – just like Salonen’s piece was written when he turned 50 (roughly).  Perhaps the parallels are intentional?  Compared to other Sibelius pieces I know, this Symphony sounded downright sunny.  It was rather short at about 30 minutes, and is in three movements (i) Tempo molto moderato – Allegro moderato; (ii) Andante mosso – quasi allegretto; and (iii) Allegro molto – Misterioso. As with the other two pieces, the rendition was precise and crisp, and I enjoyed it very much.  On the other hand, I was suffering from considerable jet lag, having returned from Hong Kong the night before, slept only five or so hours last night, so I did lose my concentration a bit here or there.  Thus it was a good thing the Symphony ended on “six widely separated and powerful chords.”

When I started the drive in, I felt quite tired and wondered about the wisdom of going to this concert.  I am glad we went.  Traffic was light both ways, we got home by 10:30 pm.  And we found free parking on 65^th!

Here is the New York Times review; it is very positive.