{"id":9847,"date":"2013-02-28T14:47:45","date_gmt":"2013-02-28T18:47:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=9847"},"modified":"2013-03-17T21:40:41","modified_gmt":"2013-03-18T01:40:41","slug":"the-philadelphia-sound-meets-the-rite-of-spring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=9847","title":{"rendered":"The Philadelphia Sound Meets The Rite of Spring"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Sedgwick Clark<\/strong><\/p>\n

NOTE: BEGINNING THIS WEEK, I\u2019LL BE POSTING MY BLOG ON THURSDAYS AT NOON RATHER THAN WEDNESDAYS.<\/strong><\/p>\n

At a press luncheon for the Vienna Philharmonic in 1986, I was seated next to cellist Werner Resel, the chairman of the orchestra. We were talking about the unique sound of the VPO, and he remarked with a laugh that a critic had written that under Leonard Bernstein the Vienna sounded like the New York Philharmonic. \u201cWell, that\u2019s true,\u201d I replied. \u201cA great conductor brings his own sound to any orchestra he leads.\u201d End of conversation.<\/p>\n

Professor Resel may not have agreed with my opinion, but I’ve heard too many orchestras change their spots with different conductors to doubt it. Last week I wrote that the Philadelphia Orchestra was the only major orchestra that has retained its traditional sonority, and I wondered how or if the ensemble\u2019s new music director, Yannick N\u00e9zet-S\u00e9guin, would seek to change it. So far in the orchestra\u2019s New York concerts this season he commandeered an impressive Verdi Requiem, Shostakovich\u2019s Fifth Symphony, about which I continue to hear breathless bouquets (I was on vacation), and a roof-raising rendition of Stravinsky\u2019s The Rite of Spring<\/em>, this year\u2019s work du jour due to its world-wide 100th-anniversary celebration. It used to be that the Philadelphians were thought too upholstered for The Rite<\/em>\u2019s savage attacks. (Stravinsky himself referred to the orchestra\u2019s \u201cchinchilla echo.\u201d) But not on this night, with the battery lamming away ferociously and Stravinsky\u2019s orchestral palette glimmering dynamically as rarely before. Deutsche Grammophon recorded it and a handful of Stokowski arrangements this week as the first release in the Philadelphians\u2019 new contract. The orchestra played Stoki\u2019s 1933 arrangement of Stravinsky\u2019s lovely, early Pastorale <\/em>as an encore\u2014\u201ca digestif<\/em>,\u201d Yannick called it. And strongly to be encouraged.<\/p>\n

The sumptuous \u201cPhiladelphia Sound\u201d was the response of Leopold Stokowski (1912-1936) and Eugene Ormandy (1937-1980)\u2014in a combined tenure of\u00a0 68 years\u2014to stretch the delay time of the acoustically dry Academy of Music. Ormandy\u2019s successor, Riccardo Muti (1980-1992), also desired a more reverberant acoustic, but he believed that the orchestra\u2019s performances should not have its own sound but rather the composer\u2019s <\/em>sound. Wolfgang Sawallisch, the Philadelphia\u2019s sixth music director (1993-2003), who died last Friday, age 89, sided with Ormandy, and the Philadelphia Sound made a welcome reappearance. That should please those who agree, for Sawallisch appointed 40 new orchestra members while music director \u2013 the most since Stokowski.<\/p>\n

Prior to the concert the new m.d. and the orchestra had a \u201csound check\u201d onstage, at which their mutual regard\u2014smiles, laughter, and the traditional shuffling of feet when he complimented the playing\u2014was palpably clear. Afterwards, he and the orchestra\u2019s president and chief executive officer, Allison Vulgamore, met with members of the press, at which he spoke enthusiastically about the Philadelphia Sound and \u201cthe players\u2019 willingness to be passionate with their music-making.\u201d Vulgamore reported that attendance had jumped from 60 to 80 percent.<\/p>\n

Yannick is short and compact, muscular and young (he turns 38 next week), freewheeling on the podium and enamored of fast tempos. It\u2019s been a long time since such a combination has described a Philadelphia music director. So far, he appears to be just what the doctor ordered.<\/p>\n