[Dixielandjazz] A Classical Lesson

[Stephen Barbone]

Here is a lesson for all of us from The New York Philharmonic.

1. Tailor the program to the audience (paragraph 1)

2. Play Familiar Tunes.  (paragraph 4 & 8)

3. Use a good singer if you have vocals. (paragraph 3)

4. View interruptions of applause during solos as a positive. (paragraph
7)

5. End with the "expected tune" (last paragraph)

Cheers,
Steve barbone

January 2, 2004 - New York Times

CLASSICAL MUSIC REVIEW | THE NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC

Rollicking New Year Treats for a Nationwide Audience

By JEREMY EICHLER

      The challenge was familiar enough to anyone who has ever planned a
holiday party: how to conjure that special festive feeling. In this case
the New York Philharmonic played host on New Year's Eve at its rather
drab home in Avery Fisher Hall. And there was more at stake than usual,
since the the whole country was invited to attend via telecast, as part
of the "Live From Lincoln Center" series.

The orchestra began, as any good host would, by gussying up the place.
The stage was lined with flowers, three chandeliers were hung over the
musicians and giant velvety red ribbons were festooned across the
rafters.

But of course the guest list is always vital, and the Philharmonic all
but ensured a successful party by booking the soprano Renée Fleming,
perhaps the most instantly recognizable singer performing before the
public today. Andrew Davis, music director of the Lyric Opera of
Chicago, conducted.

The program hewed mostly to familiar works, but to its credit, the night
was not excessively pops-oriented. The evening opened with a fine
reading of Debussy's well-loved, "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun."
Sir Andrew fashioned the composer's lush impressionistic sound world out
of supple diaphanous playing in the strings and delicately tinctured
solos among the woodwinds.

In Ravel's "Shéhérazade," which came next, Debussy's sound world did not
rupture so much as shift toward the East, or more accurately, toward
Ravel's highly exotified idea of the East, "where imagination sleeps
like an empress in her forest filled with mystery." Those words come
from a poem by Tristan Klingsor, one of the three that Ravel used for
this luxuriously textured song cycle.

Ms. Fleming, looking radiant in a maroon dress, plied her trademark
lustrous soprano to the music, and yet there was also a slight
tentativeness to her performance, as if she could not quite find her way
inside its characters and their fantasies of the Orient that seem
embarrassingly clichéd by today's standards.

There was a world of difference when Ms. Fleming returned in the second
half of the program with her hair let down, literally. She was on more
familiar operatic ground offering three selections from Massenet's
"Hérodiade," "Thaïs" and "Manon," each one delicately phrased and
attractively rendered with her beautiful liquid tone. A well-known
recitative and gavotte from Act III of "Manon" proved a highlight of the
evening, and Ms. Fleming was rewarded with eager interruptions of
applause as well as a warm ovation.

Sir Andrew rounded out the program with two orchestral greatest hits.
The first was the "Carmen" Suite, an instrumental medley of the most
popular tunes from Bizet's opera. The playing was rhythmically tight
even if the dozen-plus violinists couldn't render the famous habanera
with the hip-swagger of a real Carmen, the audience clearly appreciated
the chance to hear music that so many must have known by heart.

In the same spirit the formal program ended with Offenbach's overture to
"Orpheus in the Underworld," led by Sir Andrew with precision and no
small amount of telegenic charisma. Before leaving, though, the rest of
the guests got their turn as the conductor spun around to lead the
audience in another New Year's musical tradition, the singing of "Auld
Lang Syne."