Audacity was the unlikely theme of a late-season performance by the Czech Philharmonic, which typically excels in core classical repertoire. For a bracing evening of modern music, the orchestra offered noisy signature works by Henri Dutilleux and Igor Stravinsky bracketing Trembling Earth, a new cello concerto by the American rock-classical-film composer, Bryce Dessner. Embodying the spirit of the evening, Russian cellist Anastasia Kobekina arrived onstage barefoot and tore into his piece with unbridled intensity.
Technically, Trembling Earth is not a concerto. Dessner wrote it as a “symphony” for cello and orchestra, played through rather than broken into three movements. It unfolds as a series of sections, usually starting with a phrase from the cello that the orchestra picks up and develops while the soloist takes off on complicated runs. The overall impression is cinematic, with steady pulsing rhythms driving a narrative momentum that offers constant changes in texture, color and style, and incorporates influences ranging from European Baroque to American folk music. Conductor Semyon Bychkov showed expert control of dynamics in the orchestral backing, accented by sharp percussion that added to the intensity.
Kobekina is 31 and a laureate of several prestigious competitions, but she looks about half that age and plays with youthful abandon. Dessner wrote Trembling Earth in collaboration with her, and Kobekina’s mastery was evident in her fluent command of complicated material. Several solo spots gave her an opportunity to show emotional range, particularly in the more traditional classical sections. One wonders how deep that runs, especially after a lackluster sampling of Bach in a brief encore. But her fervor gave Dessner’s piece a New World freshness, and the precision in her playing was exquisite.
The evening opened with Dutilleux’s Métaboles, a personal favorite of Dessner’s and a clear influence. The orchestra handled its aural assault of jabbing strings, sour brass and percussive knocking and clanging with aplomb. Under Bychkov’s baton, the many disparate elements sounded organic rather than like shards of broken sound, and the effects were dazzling. At one point, honking horns and flashing lights seemed to be emerging from the music. The conductor also added a nice interpretive touch, rounding off many of the sharp edges in the piece to make it more accessible without losing any of its inventive flavor and shock value.
A similar approach to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring didn’t work quite as well. The music started off as rather polite and took a long time to hit the explosive peaks – a trade-off, perhaps, for fine delineation of details and great clarity in the playing. Even amid the most raucous bedlam, the sound was crisp and clean, with individual instruments and sections highlighted and easy to discern. Bychkov was very good at creating evocative soundscapes, drawing on the versatility and fine musicality of the orchestra to craft vivid hues and tones. If this wasn’t quite the foot-stomping pagan ritual of legend, it was a smart take offering a fresh viewpoint.
Stravinsky’s Rite also offered another window onto Dessner’s influences, echoing the driving rhythms, episodic structure and abrupt changes in mood and volume that characterize Trembling Earth. In all, the evening offered bold, edifying programming, showcasing a challenging new piece by setting it in the history and development of modern music, and referencing groundbreaking works that provided inspiration. Every concert should be so audacious.
