The skyrocketing final bars of Sergei Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony always provoke an audience roar of approval.
But the one that went up Friday night for the Chicago debut of Yannick Nezet-Seguin and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra was followed by a man shouting “We love you,” which reflected the concert’s extraordinary combination of excitement and affection.
Older listeners had to go back years in the history of Orchestra Hall to recall a program as warmly delivered and received.
Nearing the end of a nine-concert North American tour, the orchestra presented three 20th Century masterworks of the French and Russian repertory. Gone is the time when conductors felt obliged to include a piece by a contemporary home-grown composer. On Friday you nearly didn’t miss it because the chosen works not only showed the orchestra equal in technique to any in Europe but also surpassed many in its characterizations.
The French-Canadian Nezet-Seguin was expected to know his way around the music of Maurice Ravel. What he got in Ravel’s “Mother Goose” Suite was playing of unusual tenderness. The composer’s brilliant, diamond-like perfection softened into daubs of color that did not harden even at high volume. Always there was a sense of fragility and the holding back of childhood recollected in adult tranquility.
Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G likewise benefited from refinement. Its brash, jazzy elements were, of course, present but not pushed, though both orchestra and soloist Helene Grimaud conveyed energy aplenty. Grimaud is a volatile artist given to high expressivity. So in the slow movement, which often is played with the white coolness of Erik Satie, she went beyond shades of loudness and tone to manipulate tempo, romanticizing a bit — not that it diminished audience appreciation.
Prokofiev’s Fifth came as a big contrast. Here little was held back, though the music’s many overwhelming slam-bang elements were balanced by the clarification of countless small details and, again, strong emotional characterization – grand, snarling, stabbing, playful – was given.
Nezet-Seguin conducted without baton and, in the “Mother Goose,” without score. Facial expressions were as telling as body movements. Seriousness did not preclude many smiles. Sunniness carried over, after playing, to robust hugs. He genuinely appeared to enjoy everything he did. Little wonder that following the concert players stamped the floor and applauded him.
The lone encore was the appropriately big-hearted “Folk Festival” from Dmitri Shostakovich’s “The Gadfly” Suite.
