New Jersey Symphony – Hans Graf, conductor; Jeffrey Kahane, piano. March 2, 2019.

Prudential Hall at NJPAC, Newark, NJ.  Grand Tier (Seat D103, $28.)

Le Tombeau de Couperin (1914-17, 1919) by Ravel (1875-1937).

Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58 (1805-06) by Beethoven (1770-1827).

Symphony No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 10 (1925) by Shostakovich (1906-1975).

It is not good that my take away from this concert was that “wow, there is a difference between the New York Phil and the New Jersey Symphony!”  Unfortunately, that was foremost on my mind as the concert drew to a close.

To be fair, however, this was a comparison of “good” versus “great.”  On its own merits, each piece this evening was performed well, although the programming may not be any more than a collection of unrelated pieces that add up to – say – 90 minutes.

Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin must be in vogue nowadays.  This was the third time we heard the piece (2007 and 2015 prior to this).  We will be visiting the Bay Area next week, and I looked at the SF Symphony to see if there was anything interesting, and this piece is also on their program.  Today’s performance didn’t add a lot to my lukewarm reaction to my two prior listens, I wonder if the SF Symphony performance (led by MTT) will do it – if we decide to go, that is.

After the performance of Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin.

One thing I did appreciate tonight was the clean sound of the orchestra during the Ravel piece.  That cleanness carried over to the Beethoven. As many commentators have remarked, this piece has an overall calm quality to it that is seldom found in Beethoven’s compositions (even the Pastoral Symphony has a stormy movement).  Kahane put in a delightful performance.  Oftentimes in the past Kahane was both the conductor and pianist, and I missed the give and take of the chamber aspect of it.  Today we had no such problem.  The one thing I noticed, though, was the “cleanness” of the sound – while we could hear the sound clearly, it was a bit too flat and muffled for my taste.

Kahane and Graf after Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4.

Shostakovich wrote his first symphony as his senior thesis, at the ripe old age of 19.  Not being an expert on Shostakovich (or any other composer, for that matter), I couldn’t tell exactly how this compared with his later works.  One distinguishing factor was it didn’t show the gloominess that would be very evident in his later works.

A larger orchestra was used for Shostakovich's first symphony.

There were quite a few solo lines by various section leaders, they all did well.

Graf certainly appeared competent in his job.  Per the Program Notes he has no “regular” job; he led the Houston Symphony until 2013.

It was a good performance, and it was unfortunate that attendance was not good.