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Impeccable grace Philadelphia
Marian Anderson Hall, Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts
10/11/2024 - & October 13, 2024
Béla Bartók: Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin, Opus 19
Bohuslav Martinů: Rhapsody-Concerto for Viola and Orchestra, H. 337
Camille Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3 in C minor “Organ”, Opus 78
Choong-Jin Chang (Violist), Raphael Attila Vogl (Organist)
The Philadelphia Orchestra, Roderick Cox (Conductor)
R. Cox (© Pete Checchia)
This weekend, the Philadelphia Orchestra performed two tantalizing works from the 20th century and one of the masterpieces of the French symphonic repertoire. The event took place in Philadelphia’s Marian Anderson Hall, Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts.
Roderick Cox, new music director of the Opéra Orchestre national de Montpellier Occitanie, led the Philadelphians with impeccable grace, drawing from deep wells of knowledge and insight in a program that ranged from near‑deafening crescendos to soulful whispers of transcendent beauty.
This was the first time I had heard Cox conduct. His direction was a revelation in two familiar works (the suite from The Miraculous Mandarin by Bartók and Saint‑Saëns’s Symphony No. 3) and a composition that deserves to be heard more often (Martinů’s Rhapsody-Concerto for Viola and Orchestra). You could not ask for music that offered more extremes, with raging flames of sound pummeled against grinding discords in the Bartók, to ethereal tracings of sheer loveliness in the Martinů. Yet, Cox avoided all the potential pitfalls and, with serene control and poise, led the musicians through performances that honored the intent of the composers, the expressive power of the orchestra, and the audience’s desire.
For me, the Martinů was the highlight of the program, due to its intriguing unfamiliarity, Cox’s sensitive treatment of the score, and above all, by the incredible playing of Choong‑Jin Chang, principal viola. This work has two movements, a Moderato followed by a three‑part second movement (slow, fast, and tranquil). Falling immediately after the raucous Bartók opener, the Martinů could easily have paled in comparison, but this did not happen, thanks to Cox’s firm grip on the dynamics. And once Chang lifted bow to strings, the work unfurled its own unique form of majesty. While the sound of a viola is often characterized as being a little like the low notes of a violin and the high notes of a cello, in truth, it has its own reality. There is nothing quite like the pleasingly scratchy sound of a solo viola entering the orchestral space, as this artist does so movingly. There were solo viola moments in this concerto as lyrical as any Bach courante. Or at least they seemed so through the wizardry of Choong‑Jin Chang’s performance.
The concert concluded with Saint‑Saëns’s Symphony No. 3, the “Organ Symphony,” with Raphael Attila Vogl on the Fred J. Cooper Memorial Organ. This sweeping work of French romanticism was performed to perfection. Vogl pulled out all the stops, as a matter of speaking, in that marvelous, crashing C major chord that ushers in the concluding Maestoso section (it sounded much better than the mere forte that the composer indicated). Nearly 100 top‑flight classical musicians under congenial leadership and in partnership with a musical instrument of this caliber truly make a memorable joyful noise.
Linda Holt
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