Gulbenkian Orchestra Tackles Stravinsky

 The concert by Lisbon's Gulbenkian orchestra last week featured three early twentieth century works of diverse affect, conducted by US guest conductor Robert Treviño. The contrasts made for a really enjoyable concert.

The Faure Suite from Pelléas et Mélisande (1898) is a compilation from his incidental music to the symbolist Maeterlink play being premiered in London in 1898. The music is pleasant enough, more like a backdrop to an atmospheric video game. It nicely evokes the lovers wandering around in the mist, and most famous for the popsy flute-heavy Sicilienne.  In this performance the flutist's tone did not quite have the depth and projection of the best performances. A pleasant opener, but better music on this subject is to be found in Debussy's 1902 opera.

Completely different was the Piano Concerto for the Left Hand by Ravel (1930). This is vigorous piece was composed for the pianist Paul Wittgenstein (brother of the Austrian philosopher Ludwig). Wittgenstein's right arm was amputated during WWI, but he was able to resume his career playing specialized pieces for left hand alone. Composers such as Richard Strauss, Hindemith, and Britten all wrote for him, but this Ravel concerto is the most famous. Its an interesting collage sort of piece, moving from moody Ravel to jazz to military marches (perhaps a reference to the pianist's WWI experience?), somewhat like the way Mahler includes multiple types of music in his symphonies. I don's know if Ravel had any interest in Mahler, but the structure of the piece seemed similar. I enjoyed the exuberant performance of Belgian pianist Denis Kozhukhin. Its always interesting to see what the pianist does with their (unused) right hand. Some just let it fall to the side of the body, others grab part of the bench or piano. Koshukhin was more expressive, sometimes engaging in pseudo-conducting, including while the orchestra played alone. This could have been distracting, but was done musically so provided a nice extramusical visualization of his interpretation.  

The big piece after intermission was the complete ballet score Petrushka by Stravinsky (1911). This is the least played of the three amazing ballet scores composed by Stravinsky for the Ballets Russes between Firebird (1910) and Rite of Spring (1913). These three scores really get the twentieth century going in music, moving from the late romantic Rimsky-Korsakoff derived color of Firebird to the radical "emancipation of rhythm" of Rite of Spring in three short years. Petrushka falls right in the middle stylistically. It was good to hear the full score (the Suite is more common), but unlike the other two scores which were less plot-confined, this ballet has a true plot for the ballet to depict onstage--a little melodrama for three puppets. So there are a few down moments in the score, as our attention is more directed to the stage action. Musically there are Firebird-like passages of sweeping color, eg the opening village fair. But the polyrhythms of Rite of Spring are certainly coming. We sometimes are told (incorrectly) that great stylistic innovations like Rite came like a lightning bolt from out of nowhere. But even lightning has approaching clouds and thunder. Beethoven's Fifth had his Third to proceed it. Ditto Stravinsky here. Listen to this passage from Petrushka, then this one from Rite of Spring....note the comparable use of low string polyrhythms, and the riffs by the high brass in both. The full score made these links more clear. Apparently the audience was less offended by this score than by Rite, but that also may have been because of the choreography, with Fokine's choreography for Petrushka less controversial than Nijinsky's "unballetic" steps for Rite. If you have a chance, watch both YouTube excerpts above in entirety to see the choreography/music pairing and why even now it seems revolutionary. 

In this performance the orchestra gave a clear, buoyant performance, with particularly strong playing from low woodwinds and brass..the trumpet part is particularly demanding here. Given the usual conservatism of the Gulbenkian programming, I particularly enjoyed this concert, as it made me think about the amazing innovations and interconnections whirling around Europe at the start of the 20th century.