We are all subject, as a matter of course, to the visual bias of conventional orchestral staging – strings at the front and everything else behind. There are good reasons for this, of course: were the strings fighting to be heard behind brass and percussion, there wouldn’t be much competition. Still, it does mean that it is comparatively rare for the general concert-goer to focus on the intrinsic value and virtuosity of – say – the trumpet, and so tonight’s show-casing was particularly refreshing. All the more so as this was David Bilger, orchestra-member-turned soloist for the evening.
Christian Lindberg’s Akbank Bunka (2004) was an excellent choice. It was the first Philadelphia performance of this or indeed any work by the Swede. Lindberg has written an enthusiastically syncretic work, drawing from a potpourri of personal and professional experiences: Akbank is the name of a Turkish bank, bunka the Japanese word for culture. Eclectic origins make for an eclectic soundscape, from vibrant, rhythmic dissonances, to jazzy riffs, places where soloist and orchestra echo each other, and places where there is a disconnect. Particularly lovely were Bilger’s long cantabile lines – to hear but also to see. One was reminded of what is mostly concealed behind busy strings, the sheer physical challenge of holding and pacing one’s breath: sustained sound is a physical feat.
The third movement – “Turkjazz” – came about when Lindberg got a call from trumpeter Ole Edvard Antonsen who had commissioned the work, saying that he was playing oriental Jazz in New York. It opened with a pumping drum beat, and was a triumph of dexterous finger-work and competitive trilling. In breaks between the action, Bilger managed to relax, smile over at the conductor, even get into the jazz feel. The very final moment ended before we knew, not as decisively placed as it might have been.
The youthful Israel conductor Lahav Shani (he is just shy of 30) was also making his Philadelphia debut tonight. It’s not hard to see why he is making waves. For one thing, he is compelling to watch. There are conductors who have more of a geometric orientation and appear to be most at their ease when the score calls for vigour, the baton cracked like a whip; there are others who lean towards the curving, fluent forms of the dance. Shani seems to be proficient at both, switching instantaneously from one to the other with every sign of ease. The theatrics of movement is indicative of a depth of musicianship, and an intimacy with the material and the contrasts it requires.
Particularly dazzlingly in Prokofiev’s Symphony no. 5 in B flat major, he abandoned the physical score altogether so that nothing stood between him and the orchestra; he seemed to know every twist and turn of the music, making orchestral weather, from the quirky, pacy Allegro Marcato to the bitter-sweet lyricism of the Adagio. In the Firebird suite (1919 version) Shani was also in command of both its large ambiences and its micro-moods. There was the unmistakable burst of energy for the Firebird’s entrance, followed by feathery supernatural lightness of the strings. A startlingly vigorous thrump launched the “Infernal Dance of King Kastchei”. Best of all, and certainly indicative of musicianship at its most mature (and brave) was his complete pull-back just before the final chords. To enforce a pause, a micro-second longer than one has to, to delay the inexorable end by a tantalizing fraction just to so as to magnify the drama: that’s power. Absolute power, even.
