New York Philharmonic – Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor; Benjamin Grosvenor, piano. April 4, 2018.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat V107, $85.50).

Program

Metacosmos (2017) by Thorvaldsdottir (b. 1977).

Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37 (1796-1803) by Beethoven (1770-1827).

Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. 55, Sinfonia eroica (1802-04) by Beethoven.

Metacosmos was a New York Philharmonic commission, and tonight was its world premiere.  The Playbill talks about the music tradition of Iceland (80 music schools in a country of 330,000, for instance), and how Anna Thorvaldsdotter’s education and career have progressed over the years; but not much about this piece.  There is a paragraph by the composer on this piece, including how the music is passed on from one player (or group of players) to another, the fragility of a flower, and the sentence “Abosolute tranquility with the necessary amount of concentration is needed to perform the task.”

All good.  Except when I think of “cosmos” (and by extension metacosmos as I have not idea what “meta” adds to it), I think of the big bang, the background radiation, planets, stars, galaxies, quasars, red giants, black holes and the like.  There is some tranquility like the poor astronaut thrown out during “Space Odyssey,” but also a lot of violence as depicted at the beginning of that movie.  So, no, I doubt very much someone listening to the music would think “cosmos,” much less “metacosmos.”

That doesn’t mean there weren’t some interesting aspects to the music.  One first notices a large orchestra being used, including a long list of percussion instruments.  It is surprising the music never got very loud, and at times the adjectives “fragile” and “tranquil” do apply.  While the music certainly had a lot of atonal elements and unfamiliar intervals, there was a stretch towards the end that sounded downright harmonious, but discordant notes were added to eventually to bring the music back to its “normal self.”  The music concluded on a sustained note played by the concertmaster.  One could argue many think that’s how the universe will end, with a whimper.

Anna Thorvaldsdottir being acknowledged by the audience after performance of her Metacosmos, with Salonen looking on.

Grosvenor is a young British pianist who won the first Ackman prize endowed by a New York Philharmonic supporter.  He pulled off the piece well technically and worked well with the orchestra, although there might have been a wrong note here or there.  At times he really made the piano sang, although those moments were not as frequent as they should be.  I enjoyed it, but wished there was more story-telling than I heard.

1796-1803 seemed like a long time to complete a piano concerto for Beethoven.  Per the Playbill, Beethoven performed the concerto for a while, without the music, and completed the manuscript quite a bit later.

The young British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor.

The last Beethoven symphony I heard was the Pastorale, performed by The Academy of St. Martin in the Field, conducted by Joshua Bell.  I called that performance a bit tedious.  There was no worry of that sort today.  The 45 plus minutes went by, just like that.

Salonen after performing Beethoven's Eroica Symphony.

Salonen was in his elements tonight.  He seemed to enjoy leading the orchestra, and the orchestra responded to him well. He even led off the concert with an “interview” with Thorvaldsdottir, asking her what “industrial breath” (or was it “industrial breadth?”) meant.  I couldn’t understand the answer.

The New York Times reviewer has a good description of the progression of Metacosmos.  He manages to heap praises on both Grosvenor and Salonen in one short paragraph.  Calling Salonen a "fellow composer" of Beethoven's is as high praise as one can get, I imagine.  In the article is also a much better photograph of the two composers.

Beethoven's music probably is as popular today as it was first introduced - I, for one, have been listening to him for more than 50 years - but I wonder how these modern composer's will fare.  Will Thorvaldsdottir's music (or Salonen's, for that matter) still be performed 200 years from now?

We had two tickets for this concert as part of the CYO series, but returned one of them as Anne had a teaching commitment.  I took the train up. The Lincoln Center subway station was open when the concert concluded (rather late at 9:45 pm), so I managed to catch the 10:20 pm NJ transit home.