Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Rotterdam Phil give the
Concertgebouw a run for its money
Olivia Giovetti - Time Out, New York
22 février 2010

Canadian conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin may have laughed off the idea of a Royal Concertgebouw/Rotterdam Phil smackdown when asked about their coinciding visits to New York this past week. However, there was no doubt that the latter orchestra’s first trip to the States with its new music director was the chance to show New Amsterdam that Old Amsterdam has some competition. And it’s stiff.

Both Wednesday’s and Friday’s programs at Avery Fisher Hall were keenly curated, displaying the youthful range and vibrancy this orchestra shows under Nézet-Séguin’s leadership. This included a bold and dynamic account of Messiaen’s Les offrandes oubliées, an Ein Heldenleben that painted with all of the colors on offer in Richard Strauss’s palette and showed off the rich talents of principal violinist Igor Gruppman, a percussionist’s wet dream in Theo Verbey’s Conciso and an electrifying Concerto for Orchestra that illuminated Bartók like light through stained glass. An encore from Ravel’s Ma Mère L’Oye both nights magnified all the twinkling charm of the orchestra’s recent EMI recording of the piece.

While his arms are either constantly akimbo with allegro or caressing an adagio, the music starts in Nézet-Séguin’s face. He is in the orchestra and of the orchestra, connecting with his players on a visceral level. In the rare moments of pure silence, you can hear him come up for air and take a deep breath before plunging back into the score. Here, he also built two impressive bridges between guest soloists Jean-Yves Thibaudet on Wednesday and Viktoria Mullova on Friday.

Physically, Mullova was a marked contrast to her conductor. Though she stood rigid throughout Brahms’s heady Violin Concerto, her technical perfection was complemented by the passion and soul of the orchestra, and she pulled several voices out of her instrument. Thibaudet, staggering, audacious and bombastic in Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2, matched the showmanship of the orchestra note for note. He was particularly well paired with first cellist Marien van Staalen for an achingly longing duet and his cadenza was fiercely intelligent, even quoting a waltz by Chopin (who, though a contemporary of Liszt, could not have been any more different from the flamboyant composer-pianist).