In an electrifying night at the NY Philharmonic guest conductor Jakub Hrůša led an eclectic program spanning three centuries. The evening opened with the world premiere of Jesse Montgomery’s long-awaited Chemiluminescence, commissioned in 2020 under the Philharmonic’s Project 19, an initiative honoring the centenary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution, which established American women’s right to vote. For inspiration, the composer turned to science and nature.
The rather unwieldy title refers to the light caused by chemical reaction, such as the natural glow emitted by fireflies, or the man-made light produced by a cracked glow stick. Composed for string orchestra, the nine-minute piece exploits the instruments’ abilities to produce distinct colors through alternating layers of strings, both unified or individual. A graceful, gossamer-like opening leads into a series of radiant sounds – flashing, flickering, shimmering – gradually building up tension and then finally settling back into silence. The sumptuous colors in Montgomery’s sparkling opus were all vividly rendered by the Philharmonic’s strings under Hrůša's astute baton.
In her New York Philharmonic debut, Moldavian violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja brought Stravinsky’s piquant and elegant Violin Concerto in D major – his sole foray into the genre and only non-piano solo concerto – to joyful and dynamic life, delivering a spellbinding performance that embraced the diversity of the work. Only occasionally heard in the concert hall, the charming and witty 1931 composition – with influences as varied as Bach, jazz and Russian folk music – deserves more popularity than it has achieved. Kopatchinskaja reveled in the wilder, folk elements of the wide-ranging score, displaying a rugged, rough-edged tone in the gypsy-like sections of the first movement, and a graceful, song-like lyricism in the second and third, both marked Aria. In the opening Toccata and the barnstorming Capriccio finale, she employed an uncommonly wide range of bow strokes, endowing each episode with its own individual character. Hrůša supported her astonishingly expressive playing with enthusiasm throughout, with the orchestra, the woodwinds in particular, making many fine contributions, sometimes in dialogue with the solo violin, at other times in unison.
Kopatchinskaja offered two encores. First she played (and voiced) Crin, an amusing, nonsensical miniature by Jorge Sánchez-Chiong that combines violin bowing and plucking with vocal sputterings, groans, whispers and screams. After pointing out that Stravinsky did not write a cadenza for his concerto, she offered one she herself composed, a deeply lyrical creation in which Philharmonic concertmaster Frank Huang joyfully accompanied her at the end.
After intermission came a warm and dramatic reading of Brahms’ First Symphony – by turns solemn, turbulent, hushed, triumphant – well-paced through all four movements. The Philharmonic musicians, clearly impressed with Hrůša, responded to his dynamic conducting style with especially compelling playing in the outer sections. After the power of the first movement, the maestro elicited all the tenderness in the ensuing Andante, distinguished by lovely oboe solos. The third movement was freely lyrical with especially graceful playing from the winds. After a solemn and mysterious opening of the final movement, the tension increased as more and more instruments joined in the gathering storm. A noble horn solo and the Beethoven-like main theme made a strong impact, after which Hrůša amped up the intensity and unleashed an emphatic and fiery finale, bringing an exciting evening to an exultant, totally satisfying end.
