For his New York Philharmonic debut, Andrés Orozco-Estrada led a crowd-pleasing program of colorful works spanning three centuries. Bookended by Tchaikovsky’s familiar Romeo and Juliet and Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsody no.1, the maestro's blazing, rhythmically charged account of Bartók’s Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin proved most impressive.
A sordid tale of sexuality, fraud, thievery and murder, the one act pantomime caused an uproar at its 1926 Cologne premiere and was banned after a single performance. Nowadays most often performed in concert form which includes about two-thirds of the complete ballet, the suite presents the story in a series of scenes ranging from turbulent to seductive to calamitous. The brass-and-percussion-heavy ensemble uniformly responded to Orozco-Estrada’s full-bodied conducting style with commendable clarity, especially the trombones, and as the beautiful girl who lures the Mandarin to his death, principal Anthony McGill’s dramatic clarinet playing was a standout in a powerfully atmospheric account that did full justice to the Hungarian master's riveting score.
The evening opened with a less than ideally passionate interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s popular Romeo and Juliet overture. Despite the conductor’s acrobatic dance movements on the podium, and some high quality playing from the strings and the woodwinds – most notably Ryan Roberts’s English horn and Alison Fierst’s flute – the result failed to capture the full tension and romance in Shakespeare’s drama and the Russian composer's spellbinding score, coming off instead as a kind of warm-up for the players, allowing them to exercise their musical muscles in preparation for the more challenging works that followed.
By contrast, Joseph Haydn’s less famous Cello Concerto no. 1 in C major, which remained unpublished until 1961, enjoyed a bold and brilliant performance by Edgar Moreau in a stunning Philharmonic debut. His finger-busting, athletic style of playing was at sometimes abrasive but never less than transparent in texture. The fast runs and weighty chords of the opening Moderato were dispatched cleanly and quickly, without feeling rushed, and his nimble and energetic fingerwork in the virtuosic Allegro finale was dazzling. But it was his graceful phrasing and intonation in the central Adagio that was most deeply felt. Conducting senza baton, Orozco-Estrada successfully scaled the light-textured accompaniment to match the soloist’s lively and spirited approach, his expressive hands making precise and graceful gestures to channel the rhythmic pulse.
George Enescu’s fanciful First Romanian Rhapsody, an orchestral medley of peasant-inspired melodies, rounded off the program. To open the piece, McGill’s flexible clarinet once again came to the fore, in a sprightly call-and-response dialogue with Liang Wang’s buoyant oboe. Orozco-Estrada found flair and exhilaration in the captivating score, eliciting a rich and vibrantly energetic account, highlighted by flavorful solo work from principal viola Cynthia Phelps and some saucy interjections from Mindy Kaufman on the piccolo. The Philharmonic players clearly enjoyed playing this free-spirted music and built up plenty of excitement, especially in the closing pages, to send the audience home with the irresistible dance rhythms ringing in their ears.
