New York Philharmonic – Christoph von Dohnanyi, conductor; Paul Lewis, piano. April 10, 2014.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat G116, $62.50.)

Program

Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15 (1858) by Brahms (1833-97).

Symphony No. 2 in C major, Op. 61 (1845-46) by Schumann (1810-56).

After getting a heavy dosage of modern compositions in the last several concerts, I was looking forward to tonight’s program of pure romantic music.  The pieces have some interesting attributes: the Brahms concerto is one of the composer’s earlier work, and is quite lengthy for a piano concerto, it was also completed soon after Schumann’s death; the Schumann piece was written about a year after he battled with his serious illness, and he thought people would notice the effect.

The Brahms concerto is more fiery and virtuoso than thoughtful and mature.  The orchestra certainly started the rather long introduction that way.  The piano announces its presence with a soft yet effective statement that says “quiet down and listen to what I have to say.”  Eventually the piano and the orchestra become equal partners in the give and take. 

The performance was so enjoyable that the piece didn’t feel 50 minutes long at all.    The movements are Maestoso, Adagio, and Rondo – Allegro non troppo.  The Playbill’s “In Depth” article is on Lewis, who was brought up in a working class family but somehow discovered the piano in a local library, an example of natural talent coming through despite one’s background.  The article also talks about him creating a buzz at last year’s Mostly Mozart Festival.  Sure enough we heard him play Mozart’s 25^th at that concert.  My remarks were short.  While I enjoyed that performance, I thought he was too liberal with the tempo, and used too much pedal.  Varying the tempo is certainly more acceptable with Brahms, and Lewis did that to good effect.  For me he still used too much pedaling, thus muddling some of the grander passages.

The Playbill has a paragraph “Pondering Schumann’s Second” that was quite interesting.  It talks about the criticism that this symphony (especially the first and last movements) as failing to drive home ideas to their logical conclusions.  It also offers an alternative view that the symphony is a progression of specific ideas (called “bildungsroman”).  That short paragraph, it turns out, helped a lot in my appreciation of the work.  Instead of trying to impose the usual structure on the music, I simply let it take me wherever it leads.  I do wonder how I would feel if I had not read the Playbill in advance.  I also question the statement that many critics during Schumann’s time viewed the symphony as such; to my knowledge, very few works from that period fall into this category.  (Actually, this is the first I heard of it; maybe I am that ignorant.)

The Program contains the wrong movement listings for the symphony.  The insert lists the correct ones: (i) Sostenuto assai – Allegro, ma non troppo; (ii) Scherzo: Allegro vivace; (iii) Adagio espressivo; and (iv) Allegro molto vivace.  However, a couple sitting in front of us had the large-print edition which didn’t come with the inserts.  They had a hard time reconciling what they heard with what was in their program.  (For instance, the last movement listed is Andante – allegro.)  It turns out the movement listings were from Shostakovich’s Tenth.  Why do I know?  Because I went to that concert last week.

Our seats in row G were very close to the stage.  That still doesn’t explain why I thought the orchestra sounded sloppy (for both pieces.)  The violins consistently had problems with Schumann’s Scherzo movement, especially when they had to come in on the upbeat.  And this is the first time I could distinctly hear the individual instruments (not a good thing, in my opinion.)  I have had seats further up front before, and that was never a problem with this orchestra.  I was surprised (maybe again?) that von Dohnanyi is in his 80s.  The Wikipedia entry says Alan Gilbert was his assistant conductor at the Cleveland Orchestra.

The effusive New York Times review contains a plethora of adjectives in praise of Lewis’s performance and leaves no doubt that the reviewer is a fan of Dohnanyi.  As to the Schumann Symphony, the reviewer says “the Philharmonic strings dispatched the rippling figures of the scurrying Scherzo effortlessly,” quite the opposite of how I felt.

Regardless, it was an enjoyable evening of classical romantic music.