Opening night for the Philadelphia Orchestra’s 125th anniversary season celebrated the outfit’s past and present. In remarks from the stage, Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin highlighted the organization’s long devotion to living composers, reminding the audience that many significant works received their American premieres right on Broad Street. One such piece, Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major, formed the center of the hour-long concert. Nézet-Séguin surrounded the classic with two contemporary works, a bold reminder that Philadelphia remains an incubator for the cutting edge of classical music – a daring and commendable choice for what was ostensibly a gala evening.
But let’s face it: a large swath of the audience came for the Ravel, and regrettably, more than a few left right after it. Although I might disapprove of the practice, no one could say they didn’t get their money’s worth. The presence of Yuja Wang added a frisson of excitement to the proceedings, and those seated within view of the keyboard could revel not only in her musicianship but her extraordinary showmanship. In fast passages, her fingers extended across the keys like the tentacles of an octopus, a whirlwind visual that nonetheless resulted in pinpoint precision.
The tone of Wang’s playing was perhaps a touch filigree in the jazz-inflected Allegramente, the orchestra occasionally enveloping her sound as themes passed from section to section. Perhaps she seemed less vital here because the orchestral musicians played so astonishingly well: Elizabeth Hainen’s extended harp solo emerged with breathtaking beauty, and the bluesy brass struck the right balance between raucousness and control. Wang brought careful attention to detail in the long solo passages of the Adagio, and she fully came into her own in the feisty Presto finale, matching the fervent energy Nézet-Séguin whipped up in the orchestra. For an encore, Wang dispatched Nikolai Kapustin’s finger-breaking Toccatina with practiced ease.
When the season calendar was first published, the Ravel Piano Concerto was initially paired with the perennially popular Second Suite from the composer’s Daphnis et Chloé. Nézet-Séguin revised the program after leading the local premiere of Julia Wolfe’s Pretty back in February. It was especially gratifying to hear such a substantial new work again in short order, and the musicians threw themselves into Wolfe’s edgy and often combative sound world. “Pretty” could aptly describe the Philadelphia strings on any given day, but here they hummed with abrasive ascending minor thirds. Insistent percussion called to mind rock music and bar-band blues, complemented by honky-tonk brass.
At every step, Wolfe seemed determined to challenge our perception of what it means to make a pretty sound. Isolated moments of beauty emerged from the morass, like a lilting solo for oboe or a bluegrass violin lick. But the total effect was expansive and overwhelming – a tension that went beyond easy characterization. Nézet-Séguin brought order to Wolfe’s controlled chaos, and the result was as memorable and distinctive as the work’s ironic title.
The concert also featured Arturo Márquez’s Danzón no. 2, its sultry rhythms causing many in the audience to wriggle their shoulders with delight. The brief work proved a fine showcase for many of the orchestra’s principal players – none more so than clarinetist Ricardo Morales, whose expressive solo opening set the tone for a delightful tour through the Mexican dance halls that inspired the composer.
