New York Times reviews NJSO’s ‘Don Juan’ program

Zachary Wolffe of The New York Times writes:

The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra [played] four works by three promising 20-somethings, each on the verge of an astonishing career, in an excellent concert on Friday at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center here. But under the baton of the galvanic Finnish conductor Susanna Malkki it was hardly an evening of youthful experimentation.

Ms. Malkki showed that Strauss, Debussy and Messiaen were demonstrating their skills more than they were testing them in these early pieces, creating music that is confident and deep rather than shallow or brash. Her gripping, polished accounts of the two Strauss tone poems showed them fully formed and forward thinking.

“Tod und Verklärung” unfolded with cleareyed power. The majestic final theme was organic outgrowth, not sentimental overkill. “Don Juan” had an energy here, even the slightest hint of swing, that seemed to anticipate Gershwin.

Energetic conducting can often mean, simply, fast. But Ms. Malkki’s work was never exaggerated in tempo. The vitality came instead from the precision of the orchestra’s playing and the crispness of the musical line, the way that Ms. Malkki, the music director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris, was able to make transitions of speed and mood both surprising and natural.

She and the orchestra were joined by the dazzling French pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet for a silvery performance of Debussy’s Fantaisie. Mr. Bavouzet has made a lucid five-disc set of Debussy’s complete solo piano works on the Chandos label; this is clearly a composer close to him, and his playing was adroitly poised between gentle and alert, with a suave sophistication suffused with the spirit of jazz …

It was memorable, but the revelation of the concert was the Messiaen, a three-part, 13-minute work that explores Christian theology without ever seeming ponderous, a problem with some of his later works. The opening is rich and ominous, with a held chord in the winds harmonizing — sometimes smoothly and sometimes with eerie dissonance — with a broad string melody atop it.

The frenetic second section begins with a burst, but the third is a refutation of that anxiety. Sensitive and airy, it closes with a hushed passage for the high strings that moves with glacial focus higher and higher. Played with calm command by the orchestra, this was music that felt fresh yet mature, with an assurance that was youthful without being young.

Read the full review at nytimes.com.