White Nights and historic firsts: Gražinytė-Tyla shines with the Vienna Philharmonic

History was just quietly made in Vienna. For the first time in its 165-year subscription series, the Vienna Philharmonic was conducted by a woman – Lithuanian conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla. Rather than play it safe on this milestone occasion in Vienna’s Konzerthaus, Gražinytė-Tyla chose a thoughtful program themed around White Nights – works featuring composers of northern lands and midsummer sun. Superstar pianist Yuja Wang, long associated with Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto – her 2007 jump-in for Martha Argerich in Boston launched her career – headlined the evening. The result was a compelling blend of adventurous repertoire and crowd-pleasing virtuosity, delivered with both precision and passion.

Raminta Šerkšnytė’s Midsummer Song (2009) for chamber string ensemble and percussion opened the evening. Instead of a bombastic curtain-raiser, this was a spectral soundscape, vacillating between threatening and longing; a shimmering tapestry of tremulous strings and ghostly percussion, a sonic postcard of a ‘white night’. Gražinytė-Tyla drew a finely structured performance, maintaining clarity of pulse amid the gauzy textures. Throughout the evening she was a model of clarity and controlled intensity, her gestures precise, even angular, yet fluid and expressively graceful. The effect was quietly gripping, with the composer welcomed onstage by appreciative applause.

If the opening work cast a spell, Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto no. 1 in B flat minor promptly blew it away. The concerto’s famous introduction opened with a stately grandeur, burnished brass heralding the opening theme with majesty, while Wang always felt like she had one more gear shift at the ready. Throughout, her technical arsenal was on full display – rapid-fire runs tossed off with apparent ease – with Wang’s strong left-hand voicing and rhythmic drive giving the performance a rock-solid backbone. In the expansive first-movement cadenzas, she spun gossamer filigree in the high registers one moment, then thundered out cascades of double-octaves the next. Practically disappearing behind the raised Steinway lid, Gražinytė-Tyla kept the ensemble tightly coiled, ready to re-enter in heroic unison. 

The Andantino semplice second movement brought a change of scene and some of the evening’s more poetic moments. Wang scaled back her sound, first trading gentle echoes with the woodwinds, then dashing through the Prestissimo middle section with sparkling lightness, her fingers a blur of clear articulation. The fiery, off-kilter dance finale was exhilarating and vigorous. Wang’s virtuosity was astonishing: she seemed to pummel the keyboard at times, yet shaped Tchaikovsky’s melodies with a songful lilt. With a rockstar following wherever she goes, persistent applause called Wang back to the stage repeatedly, but she eschewed an encore. What could truly follow that extraordinary showcase?

After intermission, the orchestra turned to three of the four tone poems of Jean Sibelius’ Lemminkäinen Suite. Hardly standard fare for the Vienna Philharmonic, they performed with surprising conviction and color, illuminating Sibelius’ sonic imagery. In Lemminkäinen and the Maidens of the Island their lush string tone suited the music’s seductive atmosphere. Wistful clarinets and oboes called over undulating strings, the Philharmoniker’s characteristic warmth lending luxuriance to Sibelius’ evocative tapestry. The mood shifted to introspective for The Swan of Tuonela, the most famous of the four poems. The cor anglais performed the swan’s theme poignantly, its arching lament floating on muted strings. Ending the suite – and the concert – was Lemminkäinen’s Return, in which Sibelius sends the hero galloping home. Gražinytė-Tyla unleashed the Philharmoniker and they responded with vitality; strings attacked the swirling figures with clean articulation, while the brass and percussion provided muscle and bite. 

Midsummer’s Night came early to Vienna, and it arrived in glorious fashion.