Years ago, someone said to me, “Name one good living composer, and don’t say ‘Arvo Pärt’!” Well, too bad: Arvo Pärt (and plenty of others). A concert of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra in Carnegie Hall on Saturday night opened with his Swansong. This work was composed in 2013; Pärt has written many works since.
Swansong starts out a bit like Mahler—specifically, like Mahler’s song “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen” (from the Rückert Lieder). And the work builds, beautifully. It is the conductor’s job to let it build, naturally. This, Lahav Shani did. There was nothing manufactured about the Rotterdammers’ account. It was “organic” (to borrow a cliché of our time).
Maestro Shani is an Israeli and, in fact, the music director of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. He is also the chief conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic. Soon, he will be the chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic.
In a way, he is following Zubin Mehta’s footsteps. For fifty years, Mehta led the Israel Phil. Today, he is the conductor laureate of the Munich Phil. (He led this orchestra in Carnegie Hall last month. For a review of mine, go here.)
Lahav Shani is a hotshot, in his mid-thirties. After the Pärt, he was joined onstage by another hotshot, Daniil Trifonov, roughly the same age. This pianist seems ubiquitous in New York, and in Carnegie Hall in particular. Last December, he played a recital. Two days from now, he will play the Gershwin concerto with a youth orchestra. With Shani and the Rotterdam Phil., he played a Mozart concerto: No. 9 in E flat, the “Jeunehomme.”
“Mozart is too easy for children and too hard for adults.” That statement is usually attributed to Schnabel. There is something to it. Plenty of pianists can play the big Romantic concertos. Can they play Mozart? This is what separates the men from the boys.
Trifonov can play Mozart.
His stage manner was his usual. He was greeted with a huge, roaring ovation. He acted like he was deaf to it, maybe slightly embarrassed by it. He sat down immediately—and Shani gave the downbeat.
In the first movement, Trifonov did some overly blunt playing, in my view. But I also bear in mind: I grew up listening to Lili Kraus, Clara Haskil, and other super-smoothies. Shani conducted with graceful vigor, which is a classic Mozartean quality.
For the second movement, Andantino, Shani chose the right tempo—the tempo giusto. This is not easy when it comes to Mozart slow movements (though we should put “slow” in quotation marks). What’s more, the music breathed and heaved as it should. There was genuine drama here. And the pianist was part of that drama, of course.
He sang beautifully. There was nothing anemic—nothing dainty, nothing false-Mozartean—about his sound. He executed some first-class trills and turns. He showed a deep understanding of this music.
The closing rondo is playful—one of the most playful things Mozart ever wrote, in a life of playfulness (along with other qualities). Trifonov was playful, all right: but more like angry playful. The Angry Young Man, playing.
There would be an encore, and an unusual one, though not for Trifonov, who is adventurous: the 1950s pop standard “When I Fall in Love,” in the arrangement of Bill Evans (and further arranged, possibly, by Trifonov). This was offbeat and lovely. And very American, I might add. (Trifonov was born in the Soviet Union during its last year, 1991.)
Reviewing his recital last December, I wrote,
Daniil Trifonov has always been an impressive pianist, obviously—lavishly talented. But it was on this recent night, as I was leaving the hall, that I thought: “He is not just a good pianist, or a dazzling pianist, but a great one.” Perhaps I am late to this judgment. Perhaps I am early, premature. In any case, there it is.
After intermission, Lahav Shani conducted the Rotterdam Phil. in Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet, that masterwork of masterworks. How much of it did they present? Almost an hour of it, which is satisfying in a concert, or half a concert.
Shani went without a score, and he also went without a baton—like Karajan, Masur, and others before him. On the podium, he was both compact and balletic (or semi-balletic). In the music, he was natural, as earlier in the concert. In fact, a listener could forget the conducting and simply listen to the music. The conductor was a transparency for Prokofiev and his score.
Except in a couple of instances, I thought. A ritardando was jarring—imposed. So was another one. Yet this is a matter of taste, we could say.
Inarguable was the superb playing of some of the RPO’s principals. (In my life, “RPO” has usually meant “Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.” In this case, it refers to the Rotterdammers.) The cellist was arresting. The trumpeter was singerly. The concertmistress was sweet-sounding and apt. And the violist was so good, I thought the violinists might think about switching. Is there a better-sounding instrument, well played?
I could quibble beyond the stray ritardandos (as I see them). The Death of Tybalt could have been tighter—more precise, more jolting. And the dénouement could have been more wrenching. But this was a commendable performance, all around.
And the RPO’s encore was delightful: a Prokofiev march, Op. 99, originally written for military band.
In all likelihood, Lahav Shani will be impressing audiences into the 2070s. The same goes, of course, for Mr. Trifonov.
