Review: New York Philharmonic, Avery Fischer Hall, New York NY, March 11, 2006
Christoph von Dohnanyi conducting
Schubert : Symphony no. 8 “Unifinished”
Bartok : Bluebeard’s Castle
Anna Sophie von Otter - Soprano

I had the pleasure of finding myself in New York this weekend, and the similar pleasure of hearing one of America’s greatest orchestras.

Now everyone knows that the Cleveland Orchestra is the best in the country, quite possibly the world – no one denies this. But its still good to hear the contenders for oneself so that you can stay in solidarity and know that what you speak is true.

I have now heard three of the “big five” orchestras – that would be Cleveland, Philadelphia and now New York. (Leaving Boston and Chicago.)

So far, Cleveland maintains its grasp on the prize.

The first thing one must consider when comparing these orchestras to each other is the vehicle in which they play. Severance Hall in Cleveland is the standard of America (I’ve not yet heard another better) and Avery Fischer is a hall not even the Philharmonic praises highly.

Acoustics aside (fortes and pianos sound startling similar in the space) aesthetics are ridiculous compared to Severance. The surfaces in Severance are all acoustically tuned and useful, but also beautiful.

Avery Fischer looks as though they started out going for the aesthetic, but forgot to consider the acoustic properties of the materials they were using. Or the shape of the hall. As a result, there have been obvious and clumsy attempts to remedy the halls‘ deficiencies by hanging acoustic panels and sheets of various shapes and textures on the stage’s shell, ideally in an effort to put the NY Phil’s best foot forward.

This brings us to the orchestra itself.

The first thing that is always noticed about orchestras outside of Cleveland is the attention to ensemble. Cleveland is like listening to a finely-tuned recording at every concert, or in the words of one member of the orchestra, Cleveland “picks up where everyone else ends.”

So the ensemble was not as picture perfect as could be, but what as even more alarming was the level of technical profession on some of the more noticeable passages and exposed writing was startling below my expectations.

The principal oboe was consistently flat throughout the evening, the principal horn had what seemed to be a lot of articulation problems, while the clarinetist seemed to suffer from poor breath support, ending with what seemed to be a weak vibrato, which any orchestral player knows, for a clarinetist, is simply a no-no.

The string players had the benefit of hiding bad playing amongst their numbers, but there were select moments when the ensemble was terribly off. In truth, the only string section that really sounded great was the viola section. (Wouldn’t I have the most to say badly about them?)

Part of me wanted to blame their inconsistencies on the fact that their normal director (Lorin Maazel) was not on the podium, as well as the fact that Glenn Dicterow, (their concertmaster) was taking the week off.

Dohnanyi’s conducting is well known to me, since he finished a 20+ year tenure with the Cleveland orchestra during my first years in that city, so I trust his musical ideas and instincts. For some reason, the tempo (particularly in the first momvent,) felt terribly slow, and the entire performance felt very uninspired. It would seem unthinkable that a professional orchestra (particularly of such repute) should give performances which risk sounding “notey” but that is precisely what happen to the Phil on Saturday night.

On another note, the audience at Avery Fisher that night, while seemingly well-dressed and affluent enough, and yet during the two movements of the Schubert symphony there was a smattering of applause from a confused audience. I was amazed. How can a city of such high culture and high-browed better-than-thou approach to most everything they do have at least twenty people in the concert hall who don’t know better than to clap in the middle of a performance? This is truly concert-going 101.

So at the end of the evening, the NY Phil does have a collective “sound” which I find only in the finer of the orchestras, but I found their performance this past weekend to be lackluster and sloppy. It IS a professional ensemble, and regardless of personnel changes or different directors, it is the musicians job to get the achieve the performance and the get job done.

T.