Violinist Esther Yoo grew up in New Jersey, and some of her most formative childhood musical memories are of the New York Philharmonic and what is now David Geffen Hall, she told us from the stage after her turn as soloist in Leonard Bernstein's Serenade after Plato's “Symposium”. So this performance, with her Philharmonic, was special to her.
It was pretty special for us in the audience, as well. Yoo is an engaging performer, fun to watch as well as to listen to. She wove her way through the mixed meters and varied moods of the five movements with a secure dexterity, honoring the music's quirkiness and momentum in the up-tempo movements and bringing a lovely lyricism to the slow ones. The orchestra of strings and percussion, under the baton of Santtu-Matias Rouvali, matched her in momentum and lyricism, but not in quirkiness. Climaxes were appropriately climactic. The passages in which the Philharmonic provided a soft bed against which Yoo's long lines glistened like a spider's web in sunlight were gorgeous.
The jazz-influenced sections of the fifth movement threaded the needle perfectly between evocation and pastiche. However, there were substantial passages in which the ensemble did not seem to be returning the energy Yoo was giving them. The most memorable part of the performance was the episode in that same movement in which the solo violin has a discursive duet with a solo cello, played here by principal cellist Carter Brey. He matched her dynamism, wit, and style, and the idea that this was a piece about love (as Plato's Symposium is) suddenly seemed plausible.
Yoo's encore was Vieuxtemps Souvenirs d’Amérique, a crowd-pleasingly virtuosic set of variations on Yankee Doodle. It was frequently interrupted by cheers and hollering, which seemed appropriate for a Jersey girl who made good.
Climaxes and pianissimos were the best parts of Strauss' immense Alpine Symphony, too. Fortunately the piece has plenty of both, so the occasional plateaus on the listeners’ journey up and back down a mountain were easily forgivable. With few exceptions, the dense textures of Strauss’ imagery were presented clearly, the scenes sharp and detailed to the ear. The evocations of birdcalls and a distant hunting party were especially vivid. Rouvali generally stayed clear of idiosyncratic choices, but the Ascent theme's initial statement was brisker than I'm used to hearing it – these hikers were in excellent shape!
There were infrequent but vexing issues with balance. The piccolo was overbearing in all but the biggest climaxes (actually, I'd had a similar issue with the glockenspiel in the Bernstein). And the organ, which enters late in the piece, was simply too loud in all but the biggest climaxes and the final scenes of night falling. But those biggest climaxes, such as the Thunderstorm and Tempest episode, were hair-raisingly thrilling and beautifully balanced, with the thundersheet and wind machine clearly audible but not upstaging the rest of the orchestra. When the opening Night theme returned at the end of our descent down the mountain, the sense of an eventful journey completed, plateaus and all, was as present as one could wish.
