Saturday, March 12, 2016

New York Philharmonic – Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor; Yuja Wang, piano; Valerie Hartmann-Claverie, ondes Martenot. March 11, 2016.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra Rear (Seat PP107, $32.50.)

Program
Turangalila-symphonie (1946-48, rev. 1990) by Messiaen (1908-92).

I skipped this concert when I did our CYO subscription for this season, even though Yuja Wang and Salonen were on the program, as it didn’t make it high enough in the list of concerts I wanted to see.  A couple of weeks ago we got an email advertising seats for $29, and since we would be staying in Jersey City this evening, we decided to go for it.

Nowadys New York Philharmonic nickels and dimes its customers.  Perhaps it is necessary due to financial considerations, but for the two tickets we also had to pay a $7 facility fee, and a $7.5 service fee for the privilege of printing at home (it would be $15 for box office pickup), so the total for the two tickets comes to $72.50.  In this instance it was worth it.  Our seats, third row from the last, had surprisingly good acoustics; they are directly below the first tier, where seats costs a lot more.  While I couldn’t really follow the music, I found it engaging for the entire 75 or so minutes (if not entire, at least most.)  Compared to other music written in the mid-twentieth century, it was an unexpected but pleasant experience.

The Playbill contains some interesting facts about Messiaen and the piece, which is worth repeating here.  Messiaen’s music has two major characteristics: meditations related to Roman Catholic theology, and inspirations from birdsong.  Other focal points include complicated rhythmic relations, and the other is carnal love as embodied in the tale of Tristan and Isolde.  Messiaen described Turangatila-symphonie as “a love song.  It is also a hymn to joy … a joy that is superhuman, overflowing, blinding, unlimited.” He also provided a simple description at the work’s Boston premiere, conducted by Leonard Bernstein: “The work is a song of love … it is unnecessary to provide further explanation.”  The Sanskrit words Taranga and Lila have the respective meaning of “tempo, pace of a swift horse” and “life-force, the act of creation, rhythm, and movement.”  Messiaen claims neither the modes nor the rhythms used are borrowed from Hindu folk music.

Before introducing the soloists, Salonen spent about ten minutes talking about the program.  Not having taken any notes, there may be errors in my recollection.  He first characterized the music as being “fresh” all the time, and cited other works of this nature: Eroica, Symphonie Fantastique, Rite of Spring, and Tristan and Isolde, saying that is every composer’s dream.  He also described how Messiaen considered every note to be important, citing as an example the time he spent at Messiaen’s apartment, after going through every note on a page, Messiaen would then turn to p. 2 (it was quite funny the way Salonen described it.)  Evidently Messiaen was in love with someone (perhaps Yvonne Loriod, who premiered this work,) but his Catholic background would make marriage impossible (the two eventually married, though.)  Finally, while the piece started with human love, it eventually turned to the planets and the cosmos.

Curtain Call after the performance.  Yuja Wang is the one in the green dress, everyone else wore black.  The Ondes Martenot can barely be made out to the right of the piano.

This was the work for a large orchestra.  In the front of the stage there was a xylophone (vibraphone), two celestes, a piano, and the ondes Martenot.  In the back I counted another seven or eight percussionists, also I couldn’t tell how the different instruments were placed.  The bass drum had a very prominent position: center, back, and high on a platform.   Everyone showed up, including the concertmaster Frank Huang.  The movements were quite well demarcated: (i) Introduction, (ii) Chant d’amour I, (iii) Turangalila I, (iv) Chant d’amour II, (v) Joie du sang des etoiles, (vi) Jardin du sommeil d’amour, (vii) Turangalila II, (viii) Developpement de l’amour, (ix) Turangalila III, and (x) Final.  Perhaps the only insightful thing I can say is that the last movement sounded most conventional, and felt a bit out of place in relation to the other movements.

The piano had a variety of roles throughout the piece.  Sometimes it clearly was the solo instrument, with the pianist pounding out virtuoso passages in a dialog with the orchestra, sometimes it faded into being part of the music.  All I could tell was Yuja Wang had quite a bit of work out throughout the 75 or so minutes.  She needed the music in front of her (who can blame her) but managed to turned the pages by herself.  Many passages were doubled up by the celestas.

To my surprise, this wasn’t my first encounter with the ondes Martenot, an electronic instrument invented in 1928 by Maurice Martenot.  The best way I can describe its sound is that of a songbird, or the wailing of a friendly ghost.  A search of the web indicates other sounds made by this instrument, but I couldn’t hear them during the performance, if they had been made at all.  The soloist was quite still for the entire performance.  In any case, the instrument wasn’t as prominently featured in the music as the piano.

The Ondes Martenot.

I was asked by CS whether this was a concert worth going.  I told him yes, not because I could get the music, but because it was an interesting experience, with a large orchestra, complex sounds, and exposure to new or rarely used instruments.  I did suggest not to have a seat in the front of the auditorium since it won’t provide a view of the full orchestra.  Further, not too many orchestras are equipped to handle a work that is as ambitious as this.  And the whole experience is captivating enough that I didn’t think 75 minutes of it was too much; Anne drew her line at 60 minutes, though.

The New YorkTimes reviewer attended the first performance.  Evidently Salonen had different things to say on that occasion, including brief descriptions of each of the movements.  While the reviewer had good things to say, it was a surprisingly short review, covering only limited parts of the piece.


We will be vacating our Jersey City apartment the next day.  This is the last event we could make use of the convenience of the apartment.  We stopped by Brookfield Mall for dinner before continuing onto Lincoln Center.

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