Music in extremis from Paavo Järvi and the Philadelphia Orchestra
Bachtrack
Von Cameron Kelsall, 22 März 2024
If the most recent subscription concert from The Philadelphia Orchestrahad a theme, it could be reasonably described as reflections on life in hard times. Sergei Prokofiev composed his Symphony no. 5 in B flat major during the darkest days of the Second World War. Nine decades later, Guillaume Connesson wrote the Concerto da Requiem at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. In both cases, the fervent intensity of the music reflects the jarring uncertainty of the moment in which it was produced. Conductor Paavo Järvi led impassioned accounts of each score, preceded by the serene languor of Debussy’s Prelude à l’après-midi d’un faune.
Connesson conceived his concerto as a response to one of the bleakest times in modern world history, and its three movements can be understood programmatically through this lens. A plaintive Kyrie opened the piece, building throughout the orchestra, which organ soloist Christian Schmitt answered from the console as if summoning the voice of God. Järvi conjured a sense of wailing uncertainty in the music – it reminded the listener of the searching and questioning early days of the pandemic – and Schmitt’s response was mercurial and thundering one moment, smug and spiteful the next. A frighteningly visceral Dies iraefollowed, full of enough terrifying passion to make Rachmaninov proud. The 20-minute composition culminated in the becalmed tranquility of the Dona nobis pacem, which most often found organist and orchestra functioning as one shimmering wall of sound.
Unlike many practitioners of his instrument, Schmitt resists showboating – his serious, musical approach made him an ideal exponent of this deeply felt work. He and Järvi premiered the work in 2021 with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich and it was wonderful to have them on hand for the US debut. Hopefully they will commit it to record in the near future.
Järvi brought a baton dipped in acid to the Prokofiev, leading an account that dripped with sarcasm, resentment and edge. In constant motion on the podium, he produced a sound that felt refreshingly unfamiliar to longtime followers of this orchestra: an almost unbearable brightness in the violins that contrasted the despairing depths of the low strings and brass; an added sense of weight in the woodwind playing; a jolting barrage of percussion, from explosive timpani to unsettling snare. The roiling piano interjections in the Allegro marcato felt almost demonic here. Throughout, Järvi created a feeling of abandon while also maintaining a tight sense of rhythmic control. And as in the Connesson, the performance built to a buoyant, even cheerful coda, suggesting better days ahead in the full-throated joyousness of the Allegro giocoso. It was a journey through Hell to a happy ending, but one in which suffering often sounded like a damn good time.
Next to these monumental works, the dreamy Debussy seemed somewhat out of place. Still, the Orchestra performed it beautifully, anchored by the silvery sheen of Jeffrey Khaner’s flute solos.
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