Because it has a great acoustic, and because Philadelphia Orchestra concerts there usually come after performing the same program several times, Carnegie Hall is often the site where you hear the Philadelphia Orchestra in its highest form. Maybe it's also something about players being charged for a different sophisticated audience.
Friday night's Paradise and the Peri in Carnegie was dappled with great moments - but also marred by some surprising disarray. The chorus, the Philadelphia Singers Chorale, wasn't in top form. Simon Rattle seemed to lose control of the ensemble at one point. A trumpet entrance was early. This time, Philadelphia got better than New York.
But I'd sit through Friday night again if I could, not only to get a handle on what happened, but also to linger in that performance's opening orchestra-only moments, when every player was absolutely on, and when the sonority was so smooth and luxurious it was, well, paradise. That must be what the Peri heard on the other side of heaven's gates luring her in.
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Carnegie and the Peri
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The Author
Peter Dobrin has been writing about classical music and the arts for The Inquirer since 1989. He earned an undergraduate degree in performance from the University of Miami, and received a master's degree in music criticism from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University.
He’s grateful for news tips, willing to engage in a certain amount of back and forth with readers, but is unfortunately unable to remove old LPs from your basement or post photographs of your cat.
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This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on December 1, 2007 4:34 PM.
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Comments (2)
Those who attended the Philadelphia Orchestra performances of "Paradise and the Peri" with Sir Simon Rattle may be interested in a review from London of Rattle leading the same work with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, with two soloists overlapping from Philadelphia, Bernarda Fink and Mark Padmore
http://music.guardian.co.uk/classical/livereviews/story/0,,2225081,00.html
Posted by Geo. | December 11, 2007 1:02 PM
Posted on December 11, 2007 13:02
In light of reviews of 2 different soloists on both sides of the Atlantic, could it be the words of the Peri were meant to be swallowed?
Posted by Hal Sacks | December 11, 2007 8:38 PM
Posted on December 11, 2007 20:38