|
Back
When joy becomes sometimes infectious New York
Isaac Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall
02/27/2026 - & February 20, 21, 22 (Wien), March 3 (Boston), 6 (Naples), 9 (West Palm Beach), 2026
Béla Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 3, Sz. 199
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 1 in D Major
Lang Lang (Pianist)
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Andris Nelsons (Conductor)
L. Lang, A. Nelsons (© Niu Er Art/Marco Borggreve)
“With maturity comes the wish to economize - to be more simple. Maturity is the period when one finds the just measure.”
Béla Bartók
“Destiny smiles upon me but without making me the least bit happier.”
Gustav Mahler
Carnegie Hall’s festival of orchestras is like Béla Bartók’s “Game of Twos” from his Concerto for Orchestra. So far, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic’s first evening paired two works which had a remote but real affinity.
Last night we heard two composers–Mahler and Bartók–who knew and had grudging affinity for each other. Both employed folk songs from their backgrounds (Jewish-Austrian and rustic Magyar) and, most important, both sheered violently away from the 19th Century Germanic canon.
The two works last night had another similarity. The Piano Concerto and symphony were products of Bartók’s penultimate final months and Mahler’ earliest symphony–and both created simplicity and imagery far from their fecund middle periods.
How did Andris Nelsons, that Russian-born international handle these two? The Bartók Third Concerto with soloist Lang was... well far better than would be expected.
Mr. Lang grew up with exaggerated motions and echt‑romantic tendencies. I once heard him play Rhapsody in Blue with such self‑conscious attempts at jazz, I’ve kept away from him since.
Yet for the Bartók, he was lucid, clear with the fingers which he’d previously used for 19th Century masterworks. After all, unlike the other concertos, this was a paean of love for the composer’s wife and Mr. Lang understood the romance.
(It was also a financial decision: a work for his wife to perform, so as not to suffer posthumous poverty.)
The key was that semi-religious adoring second movement. Like a solemn concerto grosso, Mr. Nelsons and Mr. Lang offered their responses not with sentiment (which Mr. Lang might have offered a few decades ago) but with simplicity, even soulfulness.
Mr. Nelsons reined in the Vienna Phil, and Mr. Lang expanded his lines with the same kind of heavenly colors as Mahler used in that similar love song, the Adagietto from the Fifth Symphony.
The finale reverted back to the boisterous folk‑dance days, and this was an Imperial Banquet for Lang Lang, who dashed through with real joy.
One should have had no doubts about Mahler’s First Symphony. Of course the composer had only personal bad vibes with the Vienna Phil. But he must have had only admiration for those luscious strings and the Austro-Hungarian marching-band brass and drums.
Yet for some reason, this performance left me, not cold but tepid. Perhaps because the opening avian measures didn’t sing the imaginary forest (it came from the woodwind section). Or perhaps because I was longing for the brass to stand up for the final measures. (Yeah, that’s show business, but it works.)
In between, the Vienna Phil played dutifully, with virtually no flubs from the difficult score. Yet Mahler was aiming for a festive, or sarcastic or–at least–a boisterous initial foray to the symphony.
Little of that was present. Mr. Nelsons gave us a terrific piece of music, and any minor composer would have been pleased. His orchestra is, of course, the ultimate European ensemble. Mr. Nelsons is always a most adept conductor.
Yet the Von Suppé encore–and an encore for Mahler calls for anathema and excommunication–had more unalloyed vibrancy that the Mahler itself.
Harry Rolnick
|
