Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Daniil Trifonov make an odd couple onstage, at least visually. The maestro exudes charisma and showmanship from the top of his bleached-blond head to the soles of his Louboutins. The self-effacing soloist, on the other hand, often shrinks into his Steinway, as if wishing to atomize himself into the music. Well, opposites attract. The two have become an essential pairing on the Philadelphia Orchestra’s subscription season, presenting five thematically divergent programs in the past three years alone. Their latest collaboration, George Gershwin’s Concerto in F, argues for the composition’s pride of place in the American symphonic repertoire.
This piece’s performance history in Philadelphia extends back to the days when the composer himself sat on the piano bench at the Academy of Music. If Trifonov didn’t entirely replicate the Jazz Age reverie of his predecessor, he muted his typically brawny sound and delivered a performance that charted the peaks and valleys of Gershwin’s highly individual musical language. He brought an elegant wistfulness to the piano theme in the Allegro, before settling nicely into the movement’s Romantic sweep. In the slow central movement, where the piano mostly takes a supporting role, he brought stability to the wild harmonies on display. Trifonov clearly delineated the mass of rumbling ideas in the Allegro agitato, and if his style here lacked some charm, his precise articulation and willingness to battle with the orchestral forces head-on counted for much.
And what an orchestra! From the powerful percussion to the surprisingly delicate woodwind in the opening movement, Nézet-Séguin gave us a Charleston by way of the concert hall, ebullient yet refined. He underlined Gershwin’s obvious respect for the American blues in the second movement, which felt almost like a mini-concerto for orchestra, anchored by the wailing trumpet solos of guest principal John Parker. The strummed strings took on a pleasant jug band quality. The conclusion captured everything we expect from Gershwin: the crushing anxiety of urban life, the freewheeling abandon of the Roaring Twenties, a sense of music that feels both freshly invented and precisely calibrated all at once. It was a masterful performance.
After all the unabashed excitement of the Gershwin, Trifonov went off in a completely different direction for his encore: a richly colored, introspective performance of Debussy’s Reflets dans l’eau. It speaks to his standing with the orchestra that most of the players sat rapt, leaning forward, while he shaped the beautiful phrases of the brief work.
The program also featured the debut of a new edition of William Grant Still’s Symphony no. 4. The composer gave the work the subtitle “Autochthonous”, meaning indigenous, and dedicated it to the spirit of the American people. That spirit can be heard vibrantly throughout the work’s four movements, from the evocation of wide-open spaces and steaming trains in the opening section to the playful fusion of jazz and folksong in the third movement, teasingly titled With a Graceful Lilt.
Still stacks his harmonies in the symphony’s final movement, and Nézet-Séguin drew the best out of every section in the Orchestra. The performance launches a exploration of Still’s catalog and was recorded for future release; if the Philadelphians can do for this composer what they’ve done for Florence Price, we’ll be the better for it.
I would like to hear Anna Clyne’s This Moment again, in a more congenial setting. Sandwiched between Gershwin and Still, the six-minute work made little impact beyond the calmly ascending strings heard in the opening bars, which evoked Eastern chanting. Clyne took inspiration in part from Mozart’s Requiem, which will be heard later this season. Why not pair the two works together?
