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Heavens Before and After the Underworld New York
David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center
10/31/2024 - & November 1, 2, 2024
Luca Francesconi: Duende. The Dark Notes
Richard Strauss: Metamorphosen
Maurice Ravel: La Valse
Leila Josefowicz (Violin)
New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Susanna Mälkki (Conductor)
S. Mälkki (© Jiyang Chen)
“All that has dark sounds has ‘duende’. There is no deeper truth than that.”
Federico García Lorca
“The flamenco of the Gypsy has nothing to do with the flamenco for tourists. Real flamenco is sex.”
Klaus Kinski
If two hours of sudden mood changes be associated with psychoses, then count me–and Susanna Mälkki–amongst the Crazies. This weekend’s New York Philharmonic Orchestra concerts bounced from the totally other‑worldly top‑of‑the‑violin ethereality to a murky dark Tartarus, the lowest rank of the Greek underworld, swooping back up again through a fantasy vision of the 18th Century waltz!
The opening was indeed, literally other-worldly. Prior to the concert I Googled Duende and the answer was a mundane description of “an elf, a mischievous Spanish demon”. Composer Luca Francesconi and poet Lorca looked at duende with a metaphysical (if not anthropological) patina. Music, as the composer says, is “magic, a magic power.” And Duende is that magic power itself.
To celebrate this, Mr. Francesconi, a student of both Stockhausen and Berio (as well as jazz studies at Berklee), wrote and dedicated this work to the “superhuman” Leila Josefowicz. The adjective is an understatement. In a 20‑minute work, where Ms. Josefowicz was almost exclusively at the highest end of the violin, the composer essayed every possible technique, where the orchestra stabbed. Its startling chords (with an accordion in the background), where Ms. Josefowicz challenged the music from her own hands, and from conductor Mälkki herself. That duo has played the work many times since it was written ten years ago. And one can immediately grasp that Duende can not be grasped in a single hearing.
L. Josefowicz (© Chris Lee)
Except that the piercing solo string, the Phil and the energetic Ms. Mälkki gave the piece a vitality–and an unexpected ending.
The fourth of the five movements was dedicated to a Roma flamenco orchestra. And while flamenco was never in the forefront, one easily heard rhythms of Andalusia.
The finale, “Ritual”, was the stinger. After all the shrieking, vocal pangs of the whole orchestra, Ms. Josefowicz came to earth. No, not earth, she soared quietly to another dimension. Her strings were darker, lower, more subdued. The brass and strings stopped. And the bells of vibraphone, xylophone, marimba and celesta brought us from infinite passion to a seraphic conclusion.
If Duende ended with a flight beyond the Cosmos into a nether‑world of magic, the next selection, Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen plunged us deep into the Greek Underground. No, the Greeks didn’t believe in a hell of unending torture. (And Strauss’s work never delves into pure pain.) Rather, this is a place where even the Heroes of the Iliad were mere unearthly spirits. Like the music of the 23 separate strings, the notes were shadows, phantasmagorical images of their former selves.
Conductor Mälkki did a remarkable job with the New York Philharmonic strings. Rarely did they sound so lustrous, rarely did the individual notes and that one uninspiring theme (three single quarter notes and one sustained note on the same tone) erupted and descended, without quite dangling on the lugubrious. Ms. Mälkki even managed to bring out the descending scale Beethoven “Funeral March” (as well as Beethoven’s jumble of fake climaxes) without having to accentuate the homage. In effect, Ms. Mälkki didn’t sculpt this work. Instead, she pushed forward and the Phil responded with style.
This, though, presented a problem. Metamorphosen is hardly a symphonic poem. Hardly a poem at all. While Strauss started the composition in 1941, eight years before his death...while it might have been referring to the war enveloping his beloved Germany..., one hardly can follow though the logic. It is mood pure and simple. It rises and falls, swings to final chords, then goes back on itself. Ms. Mälkki pushed it through as if it had a story to tell, instead of heartfelt, somber, almost mathematical lines.
So one must ask oneself: was this the Richard Strauss of the most prurient notes of sex in Salome or Don Juan? The warfare and mountain crests of Hero’s Life or Alpine Symphony? Or the plethora of waltzes in Rosenkavalier? Instead of that, he dug deep into Chapter XI of Homer’s Odyssey, the dense notes floating like bubbly spirits or giant cephalopods squirming at the bottom of the ocean. In that way, it was a masterpiece. A chthonic, dark complex masterpiece. Yet not for an inattentive audience.
At the final notes (whew!), I felt so gloomy that I was ready to exit before Strauss’s lush and buoyant set of 18th Century waltzes. (Whoops! Sorry! La Valse might have been from Richard Strauss. Of course it was Maurice Ravel!)
Yet both professional duty and an easy non-judgmental love for La Valse allowed me to stay. Without a single measure of regret. For Ms. Mälkki loosened any inhibitions and swung through the Ravel with love, flash and terrific appreciation for Ravel the orchestrator. One can easily get into the swing of the three‑quarter meter. But the soul of La Valse lies in it unfailing color, its solos of brass and percussion, its buildup (not like Boléro!) and sudden quiet and climaxes again to the dazzling end.
I left before the inevitable bravos, and tried to keep those last measure in my mind. Alas, Metamorphosen rumbled about like a shipwreck in the Atlantic. But with such fine conducting, the concert, with leaps and groans, was memorable.
Harry Rolnick
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