Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider stuck to the podium for his conducting debut with the New York Philharmonic, leaving his violin at home. He ceded string solo duties to Alisa Weilerstein, who performed the world premiere of Thomas Larcher’s Returning into darkness, dedicated to her. Although the 25-minute piece proved difficult to love, Szeps-Znaider and Weilerstein skillfully guided the audience through its murky thickets, impressing with their committed playing.
Unfolding in one movement, Returning into darkness capitalized on a battery of orchestral effects that didn’t entirely cohere. Larcher described the piece in the program note as a “ballad”, represented by the mournful effect of octave-leaping glissandi to which Weilerstein returned again and again. This was impressive from a technical standpoint and occasionally successful from an emotional one, although the repetition without variation came to feel like a gimmick as the piece progressed. Weilerstein demonstrated a formidable range of dynamics and playing style throughout the rest of the piece, although the wall of sound called for by Larcher (especially in the kitschy writing for percussion) sometimes subsumed her substantial tone. Szeps-Znaider kept momentum high throughout the work, but it usually felt like ideas in futile search for a theme.
The rest of the program paired two German contemporaries of the Romantic era, Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann. Szeps-Znaider opened the concert with a prosaic reading on the incidental music Mendelssohn wrote for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Tight strings and occluded woodwinds kept the Intermezzo earthbound, with rare exceptions like the lovely cello theme played by Carter Brey. Both the Intermezzo and Nocturne lacked the charming sense of otherworldliness Mendelssohn conceived for this story of lovers and fairies frolicking in the forest. The iconic Wedding March emerged with little build: it started loud and got louder. Although I cannot fault Szeps-Znaider for observing rests between each section, the elongated pauses removed some sense of flow from the whole.
After intermission, though, Schumann’s Symphony no. 2 in C major was masterfully conveyed. Conducting from memory, Szeps-Znaider tied together four movements that can seem thematically divergent: the sardonic character of the first movement segued into a second that moved naturally from simmering to explosive. After a refined Adagio, the closing Allegro felt like it contained every emotion: hard-charging drive in the opening march, winsomeness in the Beethoven-inspired woodwind theme, and ultimately exultation in the finale. The New York Phil brass section, often a sore point for this orchestra, were on top form throughout.
