Showing posts with label Yannick Nezet-Seguin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yannick Nezet-Seguin. Show all posts
Saturday, January 8, 2011
and the Philadelphia Enquirer's take . . .
Coming into view slowly before becoming music director in 2012, Yannick Nézet-Séguin is only starting to fill out a public profile, and what the public thinks of him inevitably hinges on what expectations one harbors of an orchestra leader in this unfortunate trough of institutional ambition.
If, for instance, you feel the group's way out of financial and organizational chaos is to connect a podium personality and a community, then Thursday06 night's guest appearance by Nézet-Séguin was a tidy triumph. He presided over the Mozart/Süssmayr Requiem - a crossover work as surely as is Orff's Carmina Burana – which by its very presence guaranteed to bring the house down. It did.
If, however, you desperately want this orchestra to flourish, but cling to a philosophy that the Philadelphia Orchestra is a great ensemble deserving musical leadership of suave technique, an ear for sound-cultivation and strong personal interpretive statements, you probably left Verizon Hall feeling underwhelmed.
Nézet-Séguin quite often falls short of highly developed ideas. He likes to get through a lot of music quickly, which, in parts of the Requiem, meant leaving aside the possibility for close detailing. Sweep is important to him. Momentary gusts of emotion billow up.
He does like pretty textures, which was an aspect of the Debussy Nocturnes not to be undervalued. The third movement, “Sirens,” wasn’t a place for wallowing or mystery, but, with 30 women from the Philadelphia Singers Chorale, became fluid and alluring. Making the fanfares of “Festivals,” the electric second movement, more legato than usual was a nice idea, but it muddled the rhythms.
Transitions between sections were sometimes bereft of clear direction, as if the conductor were already thinking about the music ahead before the current phrase had played out all its string.
Mozart’s Requiem (finished by Süssmayr and presented here in the Franz Beyer edition of the 1970s) is perhaps the most breathlessly myth-gathering piece in the standard repertoire, and yet it hasn’t made a Philadelphia Orchestra appearance in two decades (other local groups have done it often enough).
The last performances, led by Muti in 1991, featured Arleen Auger, Susanne Mentzer, Jozef Kundlak and Simon Estes. No such starry names join the current performances, and no huge personalities. But in many ways, soprano Lucy Crowe, mezzo Birgit Remmert, tenor James Taylor and bass-baritone Andrew Foster-Williams were ideal. There was something shared in their vocal qualities – a limpid, uncluttered sound with vibratos turned way down. Each one at various points achieved a very high level of blending with an instrumental sonority in the ensemble. Crowe was astonishing, aglow with a honey-colored purity of penetrating presence without extreme volume.
The 100-plus Philadelphia Singers Chorale, prepared by David Hayes, was expert – always producing a focused, homogenous sound, always in easily discernable diction (a few starting consonants arrived roughed up a bit). Organist Michael Stairs was a sensitively girding presence throughout. The smallish orchestra – the score omits oboes, flutes and horns – was admirably responsive. You have to believe that by the next performance the usually solid trombonist Eric Carlson will have worked through the shakes in the famous solo of the “Tuba mirum.”
Nézet-Séguin chooses an intriguing ending mood – rather than angry, it is quietly resigned, almost a final resolution for a piece that has lived in the restive imagination of its admirers long enough.
. . . and now the review of Nezet-Seguin's performance of the Mozart
. . . in the NY Times:
Bringing His Baton and Bold Hopes to Philadelphia
By JAMES R. OESTREICH
PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia Orchestra with a French accent? The notion is almost as preposterous as that of an Italianate Chicago Symphony.
But the indomitable maestro Riccardo Muti, ex of Philadelphia, is now in Chicago, undoubtedly imparting an Italian lilt and gusto as only he can. And the Philadelphia Orchestra — after 11 decades of music directors from Britain (Leopold Stokowski), Hungary (Eugene Ormandy, for 44 years), Italy (Mr. Muti) and Germany (most recently, Wolfgang Sawallisch and Christoph Eschenbach ) — has taken a turn toward the Gallic.
The ensemble has been without a music director since Mr. Eschenbach left in 2008, but the Swiss Charles Dutoit has been filling in as chief conductor, purveying works by Berlioz, Saint-Saëns and other French masters with a knowing touch. And last June the orchestra announced that the French-Canadian Yannick Nézet-Séguin would become music director in September 2012.
As if to drive the point home, Mr. Nézet-Séguin opened the second and last of his subscription series this season, on Thursday evening here at the Kimmel Center, with Debussy’s Nocturnes. The orchestra played with the requisite suavity, fluidity and transparency while possibly sacrificing a bit too much of its trademark plushness and heft.
Elizabeth Starr-Masoudnia was excellent in the English-horn solos. If the French feeling broke down, it was only in the finale, “Sirènes,” where the women of the Philadelphia Singers Chorale sounded a bit square and uninsinuating.
But the larger issue during a period of artistic and administrative upheaval at the Philadelphia Orchestra has been not so much how the band would emerge stylistically, but whether it would survive at all. My last experience here was in September 2009, for a season-opening (technically, preseason) concert conducted by Mr. Dutoit, and the house was less than half full.
Mr. Nézet-Séguin, 35 and dynamic, seems at least to have stirred excitement. In fact, an extra concert was added to this series, on Sunday afternoon, because of ticket demand. It didn’t hurt, certainly, that the other work on the program was Mozart’s crowd-pleasing Requiem.
Here, too, Mr. Nézet-Séguin proved willing to sacrifice some of the orchestra’s vaunted richness to another purpose. With an eye toward period practice, he reduced the ensemble to some 50 players, though using a chorus — a fuller Philadelphia Singers Chorale — more than twice that size.
Despite the chorus’s numbers, and its strength in movements like “Rex tremendae” and “Confutatis,” some of its best moments were the pianissimos at, for example, the end of the “Introitus.” And Mr. Nézet-Séguin added another of those moments at the end of the work: a surprisingly hushed and attenuated final chord.
Some pointedly detached phrasing in the Kyrie made the pleas for mercy sound more perky than anguished. And Mr. Nézet-Séguin’s pounce from the Kyrie into the Dies Irae robbed the Day of Wrath of some of its harrowing thunder.
The vocal soloists — Lucy Crowe, soprano; Birgit Remmert, mezzo-soprano; James Taylor, tenor; and Andrew Foster-Williams, bass-baritone — were good and well balanced. The orchestra played beautifully, though the trombone solo in “Tuba mirum” was less than stellar.
Mr. Nézet-Séguin and the chorus and orchestra presented an encore — just about the only one conceivable after the Requiem, Mozart’s exquisite hymn “Ave Verum Corpus” — again showing the chorus to best advantage singing in an awestruck quiet.
Mr. Nézet-Séguin was originally scheduled to make his debut at the Cleveland Orchestra this weekend but re-allotted the dates to Philadelphia after his appointment was announced, to give him a greater presence here this season. That sort of thing is not uncommon, as a matter of courtesy — or negotiation — between orchestras.
But Mr. Nézet-Séguin has definitely raised eyebrows by canceling his debut appearance with the Chicago Symphony next weekend on short notice for unspecified “personal reasons.”
He now amplifies in a statement released by the Philadelphia Orchestra: “Due to an overly taxing fall schedule, I made the extremely difficult decision to create additional time in my schedule for rest and study.”
Mr. Nézet-Séguin is evidently content to put all his American orchestral eggs in one basket, and Philadelphia, as it emerges from a painful interregnum, seems happy to have them.
But the indomitable maestro Riccardo Muti, ex of Philadelphia, is now in Chicago, undoubtedly imparting an Italian lilt and gusto as only he can. And the Philadelphia Orchestra — after 11 decades of music directors from Britain (Leopold Stokowski), Hungary (Eugene Ormandy, for 44 years), Italy (Mr. Muti) and Germany (most recently, Wolfgang Sawallisch and Christoph Eschenbach ) — has taken a turn toward the Gallic.
The ensemble has been without a music director since Mr. Eschenbach left in 2008, but the Swiss Charles Dutoit has been filling in as chief conductor, purveying works by Berlioz, Saint-Saëns and other French masters with a knowing touch. And last June the orchestra announced that the French-Canadian Yannick Nézet-Séguin would become music director in September 2012.
As if to drive the point home, Mr. Nézet-Séguin opened the second and last of his subscription series this season, on Thursday evening here at the Kimmel Center, with Debussy’s Nocturnes. The orchestra played with the requisite suavity, fluidity and transparency while possibly sacrificing a bit too much of its trademark plushness and heft.
Elizabeth Starr-Masoudnia was excellent in the English-horn solos. If the French feeling broke down, it was only in the finale, “Sirènes,” where the women of the Philadelphia Singers Chorale sounded a bit square and uninsinuating.
But the larger issue during a period of artistic and administrative upheaval at the Philadelphia Orchestra has been not so much how the band would emerge stylistically, but whether it would survive at all. My last experience here was in September 2009, for a season-opening (technically, preseason) concert conducted by Mr. Dutoit, and the house was less than half full.
Mr. Nézet-Séguin, 35 and dynamic, seems at least to have stirred excitement. In fact, an extra concert was added to this series, on Sunday afternoon, because of ticket demand. It didn’t hurt, certainly, that the other work on the program was Mozart’s crowd-pleasing Requiem.
Here, too, Mr. Nézet-Séguin proved willing to sacrifice some of the orchestra’s vaunted richness to another purpose. With an eye toward period practice, he reduced the ensemble to some 50 players, though using a chorus — a fuller Philadelphia Singers Chorale — more than twice that size.
Despite the chorus’s numbers, and its strength in movements like “Rex tremendae” and “Confutatis,” some of its best moments were the pianissimos at, for example, the end of the “Introitus.” And Mr. Nézet-Séguin added another of those moments at the end of the work: a surprisingly hushed and attenuated final chord.
Some pointedly detached phrasing in the Kyrie made the pleas for mercy sound more perky than anguished. And Mr. Nézet-Séguin’s pounce from the Kyrie into the Dies Irae robbed the Day of Wrath of some of its harrowing thunder.
The vocal soloists — Lucy Crowe, soprano; Birgit Remmert, mezzo-soprano; James Taylor, tenor; and Andrew Foster-Williams, bass-baritone — were good and well balanced. The orchestra played beautifully, though the trombone solo in “Tuba mirum” was less than stellar.
Mr. Nézet-Séguin and the chorus and orchestra presented an encore — just about the only one conceivable after the Requiem, Mozart’s exquisite hymn “Ave Verum Corpus” — again showing the chorus to best advantage singing in an awestruck quiet.
Mr. Nézet-Séguin was originally scheduled to make his debut at the Cleveland Orchestra this weekend but re-allotted the dates to Philadelphia after his appointment was announced, to give him a greater presence here this season. That sort of thing is not uncommon, as a matter of courtesy — or negotiation — between orchestras.
But Mr. Nézet-Séguin has definitely raised eyebrows by canceling his debut appearance with the Chicago Symphony next weekend on short notice for unspecified “personal reasons.”
He now amplifies in a statement released by the Philadelphia Orchestra: “Due to an overly taxing fall schedule, I made the extremely difficult decision to create additional time in my schedule for rest and study.”
Mr. Nézet-Séguin is evidently content to put all his American orchestral eggs in one basket, and Philadelphia, as it emerges from a painful interregnum, seems happy to have them.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Yannick Nezet-Seguin--Mozart Requiem
Yannick Nezet-Sequin leads the Philadelphia Orchestra & Philadelphia Singers in a short section of the Mozart Requiem on YouTube.
And here he does a brief promo.
At age 35, Nezet-Seguin has been named Artistic Director designate for the Philadelphia Orchestra. He's also AD for the Rotterdamm Symphony Orchestra since 2007, when he took over from Valery Gergiev.
He studied with Joseph Flummerfelt at Westminster Choir College and started his career as a choral conductor. His own website is here.
And here he does a brief promo.
At age 35, Nezet-Seguin has been named Artistic Director designate for the Philadelphia Orchestra. He's also AD for the Rotterdamm Symphony Orchestra since 2007, when he took over from Valery Gergiev.
He studied with Joseph Flummerfelt at Westminster Choir College and started his career as a choral conductor. His own website is here.
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