I've never been to an open rehearsal before. Other than knowing the what the words "open" and "rehearsal" mean I had no idea what I was in for. There was at least one assumptions I made that was less than correct.
There was no seating chart for this event and the tickets were marked "general admission." I assumed that meant one went in the hall and sat down where one could. Nope.
To the Philharmonic, "General Admission" apparently means "crammed in the back behind a bunch of empty, unused seats." They had roped off the forward two-thirds of the orchestra level for tickets not available to the public. There were not many of these people, and those who did attend sat on the aisle, which left vast spaces of open seats in front of people like myself relegated to a few rows behind velvet ropes, packed cheek to jowl.
If the Philharmonic seeks to encourage support for their organization by doing this they should perhaps rethink. It left me, and everyone around me, angry. First impressions count, and my first impression was the the Philharmonic had misled me about what I was purchasing with no seating chart and the word "general admission."
But, you may ask, who I am to expect egalitarian values from a symphony orchestra? I grant you my naivete, but still, I probably would have joined their fundraising arm if I had known about this beforehand, or if I had been given the option once I arrived. Packed in like sardines gazing across an ocean of empty seats in front of me was not fertile ground for self-reflection. Seeing Ms. Wang perform in person is a rare opportunity for me, she keeps scheduling her NYC gigs when I am out of town. I would have forked over an annual membership for the right to sit a few rows closer.
I dug into the information on the website with my phone while I was waiting for them to start and I see that THEY choose which open rehearsals one can cross the velvet rope for, so it's likely even that would have not been enough. Oh well, enough about that, it is what it is.
The Philharmonic is led this year by a new musical director, Jaap Van Zweden, who just finished a ten year run as director of the Dallas Symphony. He's something of a prodigy, conducting from the age of 19 in 1975, and he's serving this year as music director designate and debuts officially next season as the head honcho for the Philharmonic. He's a good humored man, animated with the baton, and I was surprised that he and I found the same things worthy of more work during the rehearsal.
The orchestra played the entire piece, start to finish, which, owing to Prokofiev's parsimony, is only 40-something minutes long. He stopped after every movement to ask everyone to return to something he heard that needed work, the orchestra would start over at whatever point he asked,"three bars before 68" is what he would say, and they were very responsive to his critique. In each instance I believe I understood what he was after and I heard the orchestra make the adjustment. That was cool. By this time I had forgotten my disappointment over the relegation to the velvet-roped cattle pens in the back of the hall.
They broke after they finished rehearsal of the symphony, rearranging the stage to put the big Steinway out front, taking a break about the length of a performance intermission. When musicians began warming up again, I returned to my seat just in time to see (barely, through squinted eyes) the diminutive Ms. Wang causally walk out and take a seat on the bench.
Brahms 1st Concerto is heavily influenced by his mentor, the romantic Robert Schumann. Brahms didn't write his second piano concerto for another twenty years. This one was completed after Schumann's death, with the apparent assistance of his widow, who was a pianist. It was politely received" at the time, which might explain why it was so long until Brahms wrote another.
More recently, when Glenn Gould rehearsed performing it with Leonard Bernstein in 1962 they had a bit of a musician's row over how to best interpret it. Gould ultimately backed out of the performance, and retired from live performance soon after.
It is a flowing and romantic piece which is saved from being sappy by Brahms' light touch with subtle lyricism and dynamic crashes of forceful dominance by the orchestra. Typically one can say, for a particular piece, that the pianist is the soloist and the conductor is accompaniment, or the other way around, but in this piece they trade off like new lovers not quite sure who should be on top.
During the rehearsal Maestro van Zweden offered no correction or suggestions to Ms. Wang, but she did offer a couple to him. Overall the piece was an accomplishment, Ms. Wang's conservatism in choosing pieces she is comfortable performing comes through. She has mastered this work, start to finish. Don't misunderstand me, the orchestra has a huge part in this piece, and the orchestra is the whole show at certain points, but Ms. Wang owns this work emotionally, I broke out in tears twice during the rehearsal because she had so thoroughly nailed a passage.
Brahms' 1st concerto is a nice companion to Prokofiev's 5th symphony. They are both lush in places, almost polyphonic in others. a kind of a conversation in classic form with a subtle homage to Baroque ancestry in various passages which follow a melody across polyphonic variations. Both pieces have some element of this, and I think they make a nice pair. That's encouraging.
Thanks to this open rehearsal I will see the premier performance in this tour tonight knowing a bit more about what to expect and what to listen for. I'll let you know if it was worth the cattle call.
