New York Philharmonic – Frank Huang, leader/violin. June 22, 2016.

Snug Harbor Music Hall, Staten Island.  Seat center front.  ($0.)

Program

Selections from Las cuatro estacioes portenas (The Four Seasons in Buenos Aires), for violin and string orchestra (1965-70) by Piazzolla (1921-92).  Arr. L. Desyatnikov.

Le qquattro stagioni (The Four Seaons) (ca. 1715) by Vivaldi (1678-1741).

Yi-Heng Yang, harpsichord.

We had tickets to the regular season concert in which Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons was programmed, but had to give the tickets away because of a China trip.  So it was an easy decision when I found out about this free “Concert in the Park” event, especially since it would be held indoors, on Staten Island.

Music Hall at Snug Harbor

I don’t know much about Piazzolla, other than he had this tango sound.  Per the Playbill, the “Seasons” are among the most advanced examples of his New Tango style.  Indeed, the Playbill has more detailed description of how this work pays tribute to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.  One example is each “Season” has a fast-slow-fast form, the other is the inclusion of some melodic allusions; I did get one or two of those.  The music is generally pleasant to listen to, but I can’t say I understood it, or enjoyed it.

The two seasons performed were Invierno porteno (Winter in Buenos Aires, 1970) and Primavera portena (Spring in Buenos Aires, 1969).

For us the excitement of Vivaldi was that Yi-Heng got to play the continuo part on the Harpsichord.  Of course I also wanted to hear Frank Huang, the new concertmaster.

Huang certainly was up to the technical challenge, and there were many in this piece, mostly in how fast some of the passages are.

The “orchestra” was properly named “Musicians from the New York Philharmonic” as it consisted of ten string players and the harpsichord.  Surprisingly I didn’t get as crisp a sound as I expected from such a small ensemble.  While the harpsichord as continuo was only supposed to provide “background,” I would have preferred a louder volume.

Curtain Call after Vivaldi's Four Seasons.

Another interesting observation: of the 12 players, 10 were Asians, 10 were women.  This speaks to the generational cultural shift in this organization, if not the country.

I was hoping to compare how the New York Phil and its concertmaster compare with their New Jersey counterparts (heard in November, 2015), and decided to cop out as I don’t have a clear winner.  How’s that for bravery, or lack thereof.

Snug Harbor is a nice location for a summer evening.  Chung Shu and Shirley came by our house to share a pizza before we headed up.  We could have packed a picnic and eaten there.  In any case, getting to it was relatively easy, and we could park right next to the concert hall!