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Ravel, Rachmaninoff, and Fauré: Nikolai Lugansky (piano), Joyce Guyer (soprano), Michael Anthony McGee (baritone), Seattle Symphony Chorale, Seattle Symphony, JoAnn Falletta, Benaroya Hall, Seattle, 12.2.2009 (BJ)

Ravel: La Valse
Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No.1
Fauré: Requiem


Prejudices, like cards, should be put on the table. Mine will be evident when I describe this program as consisting of two masterpieces and Rachmaninoff’s First Piano Concerto.

Nowhere near the musical quality of Nos. 2 and 3, the first of Rachmaninoff’s piano concertos, like the last, has always seemed to me a piece over-stuffed with notes and under-provided with inspiration. There is little hint here of the melodic gift that was to make the next two concertos so memorable. It would be an insult to the gifted soloist on this occasion, Nikolai Lugansky, if I were to say that he played the work for all it is worth – he played it for much more. Enthusiastically partnered by the Seattle Symphony under the direction of JoAnn Falletta (of whom more in a moment), Lugansky gave us spectacular finger-work, handsome tone, and an obviously keen musical sense. All that was missing was music; let us hear him soon in a work worthier of his talents.

The Fauré Requiem was given (though the program note was unclear on the matter) in something like its original five-movement version of 1887: that is to say, with an orchestra of violas, cellos, basses, timpani, and organ, as well as solo violin, but also with the two horns and two additional movements that the composer later inserted into the score. In this performance, appropriately, gentleness was all. Joyce Guyer phrased the Pie Jesu gracefully, Michael Anthony McGee (a member of Seattle Opera’s Young Artists program) was a warmly communicative baritone soloist, guest concertmaster Emmanuelle Boisvert contributed a silvery solo in the Sanctus, and Joseph Crnko’s chorus sang with touchingly inward tone.

The Seattle Symphony, too, played splendidly for its talented guest conductor. I have no idea whether the search committee for the orchestra’s next music director has any thought of going one better than some of the competition by appointing a woman who can actually conduct, but they could certainly do much worse than fix their attention on JoAnn Falletta. While her Rachmaninoff and Fauré were finely done, it was in the first piece on the program that she achieved truly spectacular results. If the Fauré Requiem was officially the work concerned with death, Ravel’s La Valse, in much more sensational and dramatic terms, evokes the death of a civilization, with its nostalgic yet acerbic celebration of the sybaritic Viennese waltz-culture that was soon to be no more. Falletta gave the work everything, and the orchestra responded like men and women possessed. Rhythm was electric, instrumental colors were at once vivid and elegant, and the dynamics in the big climaxes were enough to knock the listener’s socks off. This was as exhilarating and awe-inspiring a performance of La Valse as I can remember hearing. 

Bernard Jacobson


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