(His other contributions included a glowing turn with the third movement’s amorous refrain.) Maybe muscle- bound would be a better description for this performance, heavy on the chattering strings and more dutiful than scintillating in the fast fugato section. Horns kicked off the muscular scherzo, marking an exuberant debut for the BSO’s new principal horn Richard “Gus” Sebring, whose appointment had been announced earlier that day. Everything arrived on time-the returning “fate” motive, the fortissimo climax, the fast coda-impeccably executed, but with little sense of excitement. This expressive start faded in the second theme, which seemed to falter instead of swelling the lyricism, and the movement never recovered momentum after that.
Rachmaninoff’s symphony opened darkly and pianissimo with an ominous brass phrase and a murmur of cellos and basses, and the ensuing Allegro moderato was strung together with fainting phrases. 2 closed the evening in less distinguished fashion. Warm and prolonged applause greeted Nelsons, Capuçon and composer Escaich onstage.Ī somewhat lumbering, by-the-book performance of Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. However obscure it may have been in its literary and natural allusions, the new concerto proved a consistently engaging and accessible piece in performance. High woodwinds flared as the cellist’s brilliant articulation drove the concerto to its athletic conclusion. Sliding brass chords and fast repeated notes in the cello added a hint of Gershwin. The cello added a jazzy, low staccato, and an Irish-sounding jig rhythm began skipping through the sections of the orchestra. The cellist’s second cadenza barked and wailed with big, resonant strokes, seemingly promising a dramatic finale, but instead “Danse de l’aube” (Dance of Dawn) opened with a pianissimo burble of woodwinds and a placid violin solo. A tap of claves over fluttering strings set the scene for a strong statement by the cello in double stops, leading to an orchestral climax of stuttering brass and timpani thunder before the movement returned to its opening scene.Ĭellist Gautier Capuçon performed Thierry Escaich’s Les chants de l’aube Monday night. Solo cadenzas linked the three movements, the first musing songfully with light left-hand pizzicato to usher in the slow movement, “Le rivage des chants” (Riverbank of Songs).
#CLIMAX USHER BOSTON FULL#
The cellist’s full tone, artfully varied with harmonics or a mute, projected easily into the hall, and shifting textures in the orchestra constantly refreshed the ear. Eventually the roles were reversed, with woodwinds taking up the fast scales as the cello sang an urgent melody.
In the concerto’s first movement, “Des rayons et des ombres” (Of Rays and Shadows, a title from Victor Hugo), a somber chant drifted through an orchestral fog as soloist Gautier Capuçon raced with scales hither and thither. It was enough, however, to know that Escaich is a prominent organist from a country that has produced such notable organist-composers as Franck and Saint-Saëns, and like them he brings a layered approach to orchestration that resembles organ registration. Instead of a fragrant Spanish vignette, this cello concerto was a three-movement work with a web of associations in literature and the visual arts, duly detailed in Robert Kirzinger’s informative program note. The transparency of dancing strings, plaintive oboe and bassoon solos, and the crackle of finger cymbals and castanets was a delight to the ear as this Iberian “dawn song” unfolded.Įscaich’s concerto, composed this year with a commission from the BSO and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, shared a title with the Ravel- Les chants de l’aube, or Dawn Songs-but not much else. A dazzling curtain-raiser by Maurice Ravel almost upstaged the main event, the local debut of an attractive new cello concerto by Thierry Escaich.įrom the deep, resonant pizzicatos that opened Ravel’s Alborada del gracioso to the weightless gusts of woodwind scales that followed, music director Andris Nelsons did full justice to this composer’s matchless way with an orchestra. The Boston Symphony Orchestra affirmed its preeminence in French music with two outstanding performances Monday night in Carnegie Hall. Andris Nelsons conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra Monday night in music of Ravel, Rachmaninoff and Thierry Escaich.
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