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Stasevska leads Philadelphians in wide-ranging program Philadelphia
Marian Anderson Hall, Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts
05/09/2025 - & May 11, 2025
Maurice Ravel: Pavane for a Dead Princess – La Valse
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 17, K. 453
Witold Lutoslawski: Symphony No. 4
Emanuel Ax (piano)
The Philadelphia Orchestra, Dalia Stasevska (conductor)
E. Ax (© Diana Antal)
Like Brahms, Witold Lutoslawski composed four symphonies, and there the comparison ends. Brahms’s life was relatively free from political and military strife. In contrast, the life of Polish composer Lutoslawski paralleled invasions and occupations by brutal Communist and Nazi forces through much of the 20th century. Talk about discord. He was born in 1913, shortly before World War I, and was only five when his father and uncle were executed by firing squad. There followed extraordinary events such as the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939, the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, and Communist influence and control for some 43 years after World War II. Not counting his early childhood, Lutoslawski knew freedom for only five years, ending with his death in 1994.
One would think that with all this misery, Lutoslawski would present a scowling visage to the world. But in both his music and his persona, the composer slowly evolved an uplifting, if mercurial, presence. One of the most exciting young conductors around, Dalia Stasevska, understands this implicitly. Chief conductor of Finland’s Lahti Symphony Orchestra, she led the Philadelphia Orchestra this past weekend in Lutoslawski’s Symphony No. 4, the briefest and most compact of his works in this form. Completed in 1992, the work is a universe of ideas, sounds, indeed of life itself. With her boundless energy and drive, Stasevska brought out the finest whispers through delicate phrasing, followed by the boldest assertions, her arms like windmills stoking the orchestral fire. In a brief talk before the performance, Stasevska characterized the symphony as deeply moving and the conclusion a happy ending, which it was, under the conductor’s knowing touch. Like an alchemist, she drew musical strands of gold from a score laced with discord and dark elements of chance.
The program was thoughtfully balanced, with a short work by Ravel at either end and a standout performance of Mozart’s charming Piano Concerto No. 17 featuring Emanuel Ax as soloist. Despite Mozart’s own personal hardships, nothing could be further from the sufferings of a world at war than his piano concertos, always fresh, original, and full of unexpected delights. Ax’s articulation was unfailingly on point. It is wonderful to see and hear the time‑tested masters of the keyboard perform, not only holding their own with the young lions of today, but teaching them a few new tricks along the way. Ax’s encore was a touching and at times profound exposition of Schubert’s Serenade, a gift from the pianist to his audience, and from Schubert to eternity.
The program began with a creamy rendition of Ravel’s Pavane for a Dead Princess, and ended with a bacchanalian La Valse. If you know Boléro, you know just how sensuous Ravel’s music can be. Here, Stasevska and the Philadelphians threw caution to the wind in these final moments: ecstatic, and with a flourish of crazed abandon.
Linda Holt
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