They were two impressive debuts that rocked three consecutive nights at Lincoln Center. Last week, the well-known Colombian conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada had his big night in the Big Apple: he conducted the New York Philharmonicone of the most recognized orchestras in the world.
It was a virtuoso closing of the year for Orozco-Estrada, who only a couple of months ago assumed the direction of the RAI Orchestra after his abrupt departure from the Vienna Symphony in 2022. His time at David Geffen Hall was loaded with a energetic, buoyant and warm program, which at times made us forget the harsh cold that was already beginning to be felt last week in New York.
The selection for the opening was the Fantasy Overture to Romeo and Juliet, Tchaikovsky’s misunderstood work, which was received with icy enthusiasm at its premiere in 1870.
The score, which Tchaikovsky revised several times and with which, it seems, he was never completely satisfied, took on new dimensions in its performance by the New York Philharmonic, and had a very different reception from the first time it was heard in Moscow. .
Orozco-Estrada was able to transmit with his leadership a variety of tones and feelings that were evocative, hallucinatory and tragic in the outcome of the “lovers of Verona”. The orchestration achieved by the conductor, combined with the talent of his musicians, led to climatic moments and others of evocative, almost perceptual delicacy.
The overture was, without a doubt, the perfect preamble to the big moment – and the second debut – of the night: Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1 performed by a 29-year-old musician, who seems to master the cello with the brio of the youth and technique of the greats of the baroque: Edgar Moreau.
Haynd’s concerto, a complex and vibrant piece that was lost for centuries and was rediscovered a little more than 60 years ago, served Moreau to show his gifts and virtuosity and, for the orchestra, to accompany without overshadowing the soloist. It was a combination of great moments of musical gift that made the audience vibrate with applause and, some, even stand up.
Edgar Moreau makes his NY Phil debut in Haydn’s spirited Cello Concerto No. 1. Leading the Orchestra for the first time, Andrés Orozco-Estrada conducts Tchaikovsky’s passionate take on the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsody No. 1, and Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin Suite — an orchestral adaptation of the composer’s scandalous 1926 pantomime.
Credit: Brandon Patoc
Moreau, with red socks and matching soles, lost notes in his impulses, although they were almost imperceptible, and he returned with an encore with which he once again showed his skills: the Sarabande from Bach’s Cello Suite N. 3. He performed it again with abandon and freedom, transmitting a sovereign enjoyment of the music that became contagious in the audience.
Equally extraordinary was Orozco-Estrada’s reading of Bártok’s Miraculous Mandarin Suite, an overwhelming and unbridled piece that the orchestra knew how to handle with balance and avoid the risk of some instruments drowning out the others.
It was the shining moment for the brass, which, although at times they overflowed in their sonorities, Orozco-Estrada knew how to reintegrate and make shine.
And what begins happily, ends happily: at the end there was Enescu’s florid Romanian Rhapsody N.1, which reaffirmed the spirit of celebration that marked the entire concert… as Orozco-Estrada seemed to reaffirm with his almost dance-like movements, the driver who brought the Latin heat of Colombia to the cold night of New York.
2023-12-13 18:06:55
#York #Philharmonic #OrozcoEstrada #brings #heat #flavor #Colombia #Lincoln #Center #York
