Yannick Nézet-Séguin（Music Director designate of Philadelphia)の個性的演奏

一度破産したPhiladelphia菅が再生を期して秋シーズンから長年空席だったMusic Directorに迎える予定のYannick Nézet-Séguin（born  6 March 1975 in Montréal, Québec, Canada） が，New York でのMostly Mozart に登場し，Chamber Orchestra of Europeを指揮して，そのかなり個性的な演奏が評価されていましたので，ほとんど原文のままご紹介します．

Its new approach was evident in its two Mostly Mozart Festival concerts at Alice Tully Hall: a Beethoven program on Thursday evening, already reviewed, and works by Mozart, Bach and Mendelssohn on Sunday afternoon.

Both were led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, an inspiring, kinetic conductor on the eve of his first season as music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and no doubt some of the performance’s animating vigor could be attributed to him.

He came to the task with compelling ideas. In Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” Overture, for example, it is natural to emphasize the dissonances that foreshadow both the don’s darker appetites and his eventual comeuppance, but few conductors lean on them more heavily — or more consistently, as they reappear through the piece — than Mr. Nézet-Séguin.

That decision to pound home the work’s portentousness, exciting as it was, exacted a cost in subtler passages, like the rising and falling chromatic figures that follow soon after the introduction. Those should have sounded unsettling but were lost in the shock of what preceded them. And balances went awry in the fast section, though there, too, Mr. Nézet-Séguin’s focus on fleeting dissonances kept the attention mostly on the score’s narrative qualities rather than on the niceties of its execution.

Mr. Nézet-Séguin took a similarly hard-driven, high-contrast approach to Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3 (“Scottish”). The most immediately striking quality of his reading was its dynamic play, which occasionally bordered on fussy manipulation but more typically pointed up the exquisite shape and emotional heft of Mendelssohn’s tuneful score. And he drew a delightfully meaty sound from the orchestra in the woodwind- and brass-heavy passages that give this piece so much of its character.

この辺でもう十分と思いますが，この個性的な指揮者が，Principal Conduntor として，空席のMusic Director の穴埋めをしてきた，日本人にお馴染みのシャルル・デユトワのいわばオーソドックスな指揮に取って代わるのが，たいへん新鮮な響きを漲らせて，定期会員数の増大につながれば，Philadelphia菅の再建に大いに貢献するのではないかと期待されます．

あとは，どうぞご自由に，ご渉猟下さい．

 

Music Review

Highlighting Contrasts and Not Holding Back

Karsten Moran for The New York Times

Mostly Mozart Festival Yannick Nézet-Séguin leading the Chamber Orchestra of Europe at Alice Tully Hall.

By ALLAN KOZINN

Published: August 7, 2012

 

When the Chamber Orchestra of Europe took its first steps into the spotlight, it left a mixed impression. This was an ensemble of young musicians, mostly alumni of the European Union Youth Orchestra, who wanted to continue working together as a professional group, and you wanted to root for them. They gave you plenty to work with: on their early recordings and tours the playing was energetic and trim, but it could also be cautious and prim, as if only the most finely polished performances were acceptable.

Now, with more than three decades behind it, the orchestra plays with all the power, punch and sheer personality that was lacking in the early years. Its new approach was evident in its two Mostly Mozart Festival concerts at Alice Tully Hall: a Beethoven program on Thursday evening, already reviewed, and works by Mozart, Bach and Mendelssohn on Sunday afternoon.

Both were led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, an inspiring, kinetic conductor on the eve of his first season as music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and no doubt some of the performance’s animating vigor could be attributed to him.

He came to the task with compelling ideas. In Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” Overture, for example, it is natural to emphasize the dissonances that foreshadow both the don’s darker appetites and his eventual comeuppance, but few conductors lean on them more heavily — or more consistently, as they reappear through the piece — than Mr. Nézet-Séguin.

That decision to pound home the work’s portentousness, exciting as it was, exacted a cost in subtler passages, like the rising and falling chromatic figures that follow soon after the introduction. Those should have sounded unsettling but were lost in the shock of what preceded them. And balances went awry in the fast section, though there, too, Mr. Nézet-Séguin’s focus on fleeting dissonances kept the attention mostly on the score’s narrative qualities rather than on the niceties of its execution.

Mr. Nézet-Séguin took a similarly hard-driven, high-contrast approach to Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3 (“Scottish”). The most immediately striking quality of his reading was its dynamic play, which occasionally bordered on fussy manipulation but more typically pointed up the exquisite shape and emotional heft of Mendelssohn’s tuneful score. And he drew a delightfully meaty sound from the orchestra in the woodwind- and brass-heavy passages that give this piece so much of its character.

Between the Mozart and the Mendelssohn, the violinist Lisa Batiashvili and the oboist François Leleux gave a zesty, stylishly ornamented account of Bach’s Concerto in C minor (BWV 1060), reconstructed from the surviving two-harpsichord version. As an encore they played a sizzling duet version of “Der Hölle Rache,” the Queen of the Night’s flighty aria from “The Magic Flute.”