Superconductor: ‘a whirling and exuberant finish’
Superconductor writes:
On Sunday afternoon at NJPAC, Mr. Lacombe ended his term as music director with a stylish concert that played to his passions and strengths: new music, Romantic repertory and French music the early 20th century, here represented by a pair of pieces by Maurice Ravel.
The concert opened with Night and the City, a short tone poem by Philadelphia-based composer Chris Rogerson ... This piece saw life through the Edward T. Cone Compositon Institute, an NJSO initiative spearheaded by Mr. Lacombe, offering compositional opportunities to young composers with roots in the Garden State ...
[Piano soloist Joyce Yang] dove in and out of the flowing stream of [Rachmaninoff's] orchestration, showing her own steady command of the big black Steinway. Trills, arpeggios and flourishes erupted as she moved the work forward to its endgame. A last cadenza and coda were delivered in close concert with Mr. Lacombe, to thrilling effect.Despite the colors of its elaborate orchestration, La Valse is a grim work, one that seems to imagine all of Europe engaged in a dance of death that ultimately ends in folly. Mr. Lacombe balanced the lyric quality of the early pages with the obsessive rhythms that require careful coordination between the timpani and the other percussionists. The work whirled, teetered and crashed to a stop, with Mr. Lacombe bringing the impact home with a few strokes of his baton.
The Suite No. 2 from Daphnis et Chloe was a total contrast, a work that unfurled all the rich colors of Ravel’s giant orchestra to retell the last scenes from this gorgeous, pastoral ballet. Although Daphnis is ravel’s only collaboration with master ballet impresario Sergei Diaghalev, this performance showed why is work is best suited who the concert hall as Mr. Lacombe summoned twittering birds, a glorious golden sunrise from the brass and strings and finally a celebratory danse generale that brought the concert and his time in New averse you to a whirling and exuberant finish.
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JACQUES LACOMBE: TOP 10 MOMENTS
From his magical NJSO debut leading Carmina Burana to triumphant performances at Carnegie Hall’s Spring For Music Festival to his celebration of New Jersey’s rich cultural heritage, NJSO Music Director Jacques Lacombe has garnered praise from audiences and critics alike for his talents on the podium and creative programming during his remarkable six-year tenure.