Matthew Aucoin
Suite from Eurydice [New York premiere]
Barber
Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Op.24
Valerie Coleman
This Is Not a Small Voice [New York premiere]
Price
Symphony No.1 in E-minor
Angel Blue (soprano)
Philadelphia Orchestra
Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Reviewed by: Susan Stempleski
Reviewed: 8 February, 2022
Venue: Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall, New York City
In an imaginative line-up of old and new Americana, the concert opened with the Suite by Matthew Aucoin crafted from his 2020 opera, Eurydice. At the Met, where the opera – a retelling of the Orpheus myth from Eurydice’s point of view – played last fall, Aucoin’s richly orchestrated score impressed, but in this abstract the music’s wide-ranging intensity and extravagance were even more dazzling. Highlights of this masterly performance were principal clarinet Ricardo Morales’s luxuriously mournful solo in the second movement, the dreamlike delicacy of the strings in the third, and the percussion’s ominous rendering of Orpheus and Eurydice’s footsteps in the fourth and final section, ‘The Walk’, which depicts their disastrous journey from Hades to the world above.
In Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Samuel Barber’s sublime 1947 setting of James Agee’s childlike evocation of memories of a summer evening in his native Tennessee, Angel Blue was splendid. Her lush, richly textured soprano, well suited to the work’s abundant lyricism, combined with her highly dramatic stage presence, made the performance particularly compelling. While she emphasized the musical line more than the individual words, her diction remained characterful and clear. Her finely rendered account of being “taken in and put to bed” was as warm and tender as Agee’s words suggest. And with Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s attentive conducting, the orchestra was equally effective at conveying the intimacy and beauty of the rapturous and haunting score.
Next came Valerie Coleman’s This Is Not a Small Voice, a setting of the eponymous poem by Sonia Sanchez. The lyrics, alternating between rumination and dauntless affirmation, celebrate the strength of the collective voice of Black individuals and communities. Blue gave an ardent and energetic performance of the difficult solo part, which moves from creamy depths to shimmering heights. In the opening stanza, when the singer shouted the names of Black children, the orchestra sounded buoyant and cheerful. Later, where the text speaks of mending the children with love, the gentle and poignant music reflected more delicate emotions.Following intermission, came a fluid and focused account of Florence Price’s Symphony No.1. The first full-scale orchestral composition by a Black woman to be played by a major orchestra, it was debuted by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Frederick Stock at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. Composed within a traditional four-movement framework, the music unveils a colorful array of timbres and most effectively recalls the composer’s Afro-American heritage by weaving in folk melodies, spirituals and African dance rhythms. Nézet-Séguin and the Philadelphians gave a performance brimming with exuberance and feeling. The opening bassoon solo, so reminiscent of Dvořák’s ‘New World’ Symphony, was peacefully melodious. The four-part hymnlike brass chorale in the spacious second movement, Largo maestoso, was imposing, verging on an overpowering forte, while the woodwind solos were radiantly done. The jaunty third, which draws on the African Juba Dance, introduced a party atmosphere, wonderfully nimble and bright with its spry syncopations and catchy melodies. A dynamic and fiery Presto Finale brought the Symphony to a jubilant close.