Yannick Nézet-Séguin must be exhausted. Three days after the culmination of his Beethoven cycle with The Philadelphia Orchestra, and just before the premiere of a new production of Don Carlos at The Met, he was called upon to replace Valery Gergiev in the Vienna Philharmonic’s series at Carnegie Hall.
The third and last of the series consisted entirely of Russian music: selections from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet and Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique. The Prokofiev was assembled from two of the composer’s suites of music from the ballet. If there was a logic to the choice of repertoire, it escaped me, and perhaps also Nézet-Séguin. Individual passages were convincing. I was quite taken by the principal clarinet’s silky sound in Juliet as a Young Girl and the diamond-hard string articulations in the Minuet. The final movement, Romeo at Juliet’s Grave, was also quite engaging. However, the orchestra’s sound was very dark and bottom-heavy; textures were often muddy and detail was hard to come by.
Things got more interesting after intermission. Before the Tchaikovsky, violinist and Chairman of the Vienna Philharmonic Daniel Froschauer, flanked by Nézet-Séguin, made an announcement, requesting a minute of silence at the end of the symphony, in solidarity with the people of Ukraine.
The performance that followed was by turns anguished, lyrical, savage and subtle. The orchestra’s dark sound, which had been problematic at times in the Prokofiev, served the Adagio introduction here very well indeed, making it a visceral moan of despair, set off by some extraordinarily eloquent silences. There were a couple of minor balance and ensemble issues early on in the Allegro, but they were soon forgotten in the beautifully balanced build through heartfelt anguish to an amazing sustained climax, with the brass punching through seeming chaos. When the lyrical second theme returned, transformed to a calmer affect, it felt like the meds finally kicking in.
The second movement, the famous limping waltz in 5/4 time, emphasized the hypermeter of two-measure phrases, at first evoking courtly elegance rather than a twitchy physicality. The discomfort was transferred to the despairing second theme, backed by repeated timpani notes suggesting a heart beating just a little too fast.
When I first heard this symphony as a child I wondered why Tchaikovsky didn’t give the trumpets the triumphant march theme at the end of the third movement. This performance answered the question as well as any I’ve heard: the third movement was primarily headlong and frantic rather than celebratory, conjuring a fevered self-delusion. The high woodwinds, subdued for much of the evening, stepped up to add a too-bright sparkle.
Nézet-Séguin chose to segue directly from the third movement into the desolate Adagio lamentoso, presumably to forestall applause. This movement likewise tumbled out unhurried but unforced, a final confession whose climax perforce was now the minute of silence after it ended.
