“The Scent of Happiness”: The Boston Symphony Orchestra on the Musikfest Berlin

Even the appetizer is luxurious when the Boston Symphony Orchestra performs on the Berlin Music Competition. Julia Adolphe’s “Makeshift Citadel” (2022) – “Provisional Citadel” – impressively demonstrates the vary of orchestral sounds final Tuesday within the Philharmonie. The provisional is musically created within the on the one hand static, alternatively always altering power states. Adolphe creates a two-movement discipline of stress from “sandstone” – sturdiness – to “picket embers” – transience – in his personal tonal language. It’s processes of agglomeration or decay that mediate between the eruptive sound results and fragile intimacy.

The concept of ​​mediating between diametrically opposed poles is equally formative for the primary primary course of the night. George Gershwin’s “Concerto in F” for piano and orchestra from 1925 is served. How unmistakable is the composer’s sound, which is also known as “Symphonic Jazz” and was already within the offing within the “Rhapsody in Blue” composed the earlier 12 months. Within the piano concerto, nonetheless, the fusion of conventional parts of classical music and the newest widespread tendencies from Gershwin’s time might be skilled in “large kind”. A person tonal language speaks from the rating with a naturalness that may in all probability solely be achieved by somebody who’s equally at dwelling in each worlds and who additionally has genius and mastery.

Thunderous applause after the primary sentence

Whereas Gershwin got here late to a well-founded classical schooling and first gained a foothold within the leisure business, it was the opposite means round for Jean-Yves Thibaudet. The sympathetic Frenchman got here to work with movie music and at last additionally with jazz late. As he explains himself, he discovered the “Rhapsody” and the “Concerto” on the age of 14, however solely understood it years later. It takes a lot extra cultural data to fill musical phonetics with that means.

Right this moment, at any price, Thibaudet’s music appears tailored for Gershwin. How he’s so tonally versatile; typically sleek, typically boasting, however by no means extraordinary; all the time stays clear and projected into the corridor, thunderous applause after the primary motion is just deserved. In accordance with Thibaudet, what makes Gershwin’s music so particular is that it leaves us “with the scent of happiness”. That’s precisely what is feasible immediately – even with out an encore.

It’s a shared triumph shared by the BSO and Nelsons alike. Within the subsequent “Petruschka” by Igor Stravinsky we expertise an excellently attuned ensemble that performs cleanly however warmly. Nelsons absolutely lives as much as his standing as a world-class conductor by investing closely in musical element alongside an unerring sense of formal construction. Right this moment, the concentrated bodily plasticity might be skilled within the wealthy textures of the piece and can reverberate lengthy after you’ve gone dwelling.