Gergiev, Vienna Philharmonic Heat Up Carnegie Hall

Outside the entrances to Carnegie Hall's main auditorium, there are bins filled with Ricola cough drops. The next time the Vienna Philharmonic comes to town, however, cold towels would be more appropriate.

The orchestra and Russian dynamo Valery Gergiev were at Carnegie Hall for three sold-out concerts, beginning Friday night with performances of excerpts from Berlioz's Romeo et Juliette, the yearning Prelude and Liebestod from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, and Debussy's shimmering La Mer.

As I see it, a music critic's primary job is reporting: What did the performance sound like? Look like? Feel like? In many cases, it would be pretty easy to write a cursory description, throw in some authoritative-sounding terms, and bask in one's own brilliance. After all, how smart does it sound to talk about sonic clarity and careful dynamic pacing? But such writing means little to the average reader; it merely sounds impressive and people get the general idea whether the orchestra played well or not.

After hearing the Vienna Philharmonic on Friday night, I'm not ashamed to say I don't have the words to do the concert justice. It's not enough to say the orchestra was outstanding–they were. Simply put, it was the greatest orchestral playing I've heard in my life. Gergiev and the orchestra were exemplary in every regard, but several moments struck me as near miraculous.

Close to the end of the Berlioz, there was an extended, passionate solo from Principal Clarinet Peter Schmidl that began as a halting whisper and grew to an emotional lament. In the opening phrases, Schmidl's tone–soft and beautifully mellow–seemed to have neither a beginning nor an end; it merely emerged and disappeared within a world all its own.

Gergiev built the Tristan Prelude to a single, heart-stopping climax. For much of the opening, he set an expansive tempo, but as the strings begin their sweeping upward scales (measure 63, for nerds like me who have the score!), Gergiev slowly gathered speed, reaching the summit 20 bars later in a crushing diminished seventh chord. The entire Prelude (the entire opera, for that matter) is constantly pulling you in different directions, withholding the resolution your ear craves, but I've found this passage especially restless and unstable. Gergiev's interpretation was how I'd always imagined it being done, and with such overwhelming effect.

Throughout the concert, the brass produced a sound that almost defied belief–perfectly balanced, perfectly in tune. No matter how loud they played (and Gergiev was not shy about letting them rip), their tone remained remarkably warm and mellow. The great brass chorale at the end of La Mer had the richness and purity of liquid gold.

For Carnegie Hall veterans, hearing the Vienna Philharmonic may have lost its special appeal. But for me, it was a revelation, a glimpse at what is possible from an orchestra. Even a simple pizzicato had the weight and unity to ring throughout the hall. It may be a long time before I hear the Vienna Philharmonic again, but they have set an imposing standard that will be difficult for any orchestra to exceed.

(Photo by Marco Borggreve)