The evening opened with Matthias Pintscher leading the US premiere of his tone poem neharot, which he describes as ‘a tombeau, a requiem, a kaddish – for all the people we have lost’ in the COVID-19 pandemic. The Hebrew title can be translated as ‘rivers’ or ‘tears’, underscoring both the emotional content and the constant flow of the 25-minute piece. The composer took inspiration from Chartres Cathedral, its stalwart presence several times destroyed by fire and war over the past millennium, and each time rebuilt. Opening with a brass bellow that soon drifts down to a dark, undulating rumble in the strings and low woodwinds, the fluctuating score alternates between the rhapsodic and the doleful, marked by abrupt silences and interrupted phrases. Periodically, a mournful woodwind solo or cantilena emerges before being drowned out in a surge of orchestral sound.
The abundant musical forces (12 winds, 11 brass, two harps, piano, celesta, and a mind-boggling array of percussive instruments) vividly called to mind both the feelings of angst prevalent during the catastrophe and the unearthly quietude of city streets and sidewalks during its darkest days. A solo trumpet lament amid stuttering strings and fluttering woodwinds revived memories of sirens interrupting the ghostly silence. A somber funeral march from the brass, and the ethereal-sounding harps conjured up an anxiety-ridden dreamlike state, aptly conveying the grief and trauma of the pandemic, before closing with a loud and final thud.
Given the nature of the piece, the audience’s response was respectful but subdued. The mood abruptly changed when Gil Shaham performed Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto. His tone was somewhat slender at the outset but his nimble playing soon turned breathtaking in the first-movement cadenza. Other highlights of the performance included the violinist’s high-speed fireworks at the close of the opening movement, his intimate delivery of the main theme of the central Andante – as pulsating strings and tender woodwinds beautifully supported his gracefully soaring line – and the joyful rendition of the Finale. With solid, visibly collegial collaboration from Pintscher and the orchestra, the result was sparkling and happy throughout. Shaham offered a vivacious encore – the Gavotte en Rondeau from Bach’s E-major Partita, BWV1006.
Arnold Schoenberg’s early (1903) tone poem, Pelleas und Melisande, took up the second half of the program. The composer’s first score for full orchestra, it follows the narrative of Maurice Materlinck’s 1892 drama chronicling a doomed love triangle, a tale which inspired numerous other musical treatments, most notably Debussy’s great opera and incidental scores by Fauré and Sibelius. Wagnerian in its musical idiom and grandeur, the 45-minute score pushes the bounds of tonal harmonies. Under Pintscher’s secure baton the Philharmonic produced a richly colored, dramatically urgent and well-shaped account of the complex work, one that brought the musical portraits of the main characters and events into bold relief – concertmaster Frank Huang’s sweet-toned violin solos evoking the mysterious Melisande, the bright trumpet depicting the younger Pelleas who steals the affection of his half-brother’s wife; the basses’ low mutterings suggesting the simmering jealousy of her husband Golaud; the sonic burst of the timpani when Golaud kills Pelleas; and, in the final pages, the slow and lengthy descent in the strings depicting the tragic death of Melisande, investing a profound sense of sadness.
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