A Beethoven buffet from Nathalie Stutzmann and the Philadelphia Orchestra

Nathalie Stutzmann concludes her tenure as Principal Guest Conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra this spring. Based on her belated first appearance in Verizon Hall this season, leading a program of familiar Beethoven favorites, one can only hope that she will continue to visit as often as her duties in Atlanta and abroad will allow. As she has done so often throughout her time as Philadelphia’s second-in-command, she offered a shot in the arm to the most recognizable music, balancing an artist’s attention to detail with a showman’s sense of big-picture grandeur. And she found an ideal partner in pianist Haochen Zhang, who opened the concert as soloist in the Piano Concerto no. 5 in E flat major, “Emperor”.

Zhang, Stutzmann and the Philadelphians recorded all five of Beethoven’s piano concertos for the BIS label in 2021. I enjoyed the disc upon release, though I found some of their interpretive choices a touch clinical – especially in the Fifth, the most ebullient of works. On record, Stutzmann tended toward culling a more filigree sound from the orchestra, and Zhang seemed to favor a more sober approach to the virtuosic solo demands.

In the concert hall, however, they partnered to create a freewheeling sense of fun. Zhang possesses the single largest sound I’ve ever heard from a soloist in these environs; when he entered in the opening passages of the Allegro, you understood instantly why the concerto earned its nickname. Yet he never sacrificed beauty of tone for mere brawniness, and his ability to modulate dynamics within a single phrase was absolutely stunning. The brilliant passages of the first movement emerged with a smooth sense of legato, and the deep colors that Zhang summoned were matched by Stutzmann’s lush accompaniment. She drew out gentle playing in the Adagio, with a particularly lovely singing quality in the woodwinds, which Zhang complemented in his tender statement of the melody. The finale overflowed with raucous energy, though not at the expense of detail, either from Zhang or in the orchestra. Special mention here goes to timpanist Angela Zator Nelson for her buoyant contribution in the final moments.

For his encore, Zhang offered Moritz Moszkowski’s transcription of the Chanson bohème from Carmen. It was no surprise at this point that he dispatched the keyboard fireworks effortlessly. What was more striking was how he captured the dramatic detail of Carmen’s seduction of Don José, building in volume and color from a first whispered utterance to an all-consuming sense of passion. Here is an artist who understands the essential theatricality embedded in music.

The sassy Rondo at the end of the Emperor built a bridge to the program’s second half: Symphony no. 7 in A major, the heralded “apotheosis of the dance”. Stutzmann didn’t experiment as freely with tempos as her boss Yannick Nézet-Séguin did when he led this work two seasons ago, but she didn’t shy away from rubato either, and the joyful melodic expansiveness of the first movement sailed seamlessly into the elegant Allegretto. Again, there was plenty of detail: Jeffrey Khaner on flute and Philippe Tondre on the multiple passages for oboe stood out, and Stutzmann found a hearty humor in the abruptly curtailed little Trio at the end of the third movement. If some elements overwhelmed the whole – the timpani was a touch too forceful in the Allegro con brio here – it was simply the price of passion. Beethoven stacks that final movement with false conclusions, but in Stutzmann’s hands, you never wanted it to end.