Jonathan Biss James Levine and The MET Orchestra

The last concert of the 3 the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra played in its Carnegie Hall series was held Thursday 5/22. It was in the familiar format of a contemporary piece followed by a concerto by a noted soloist and a universally loved war horse after the intermission. Still with the contemporary composer being Levine favorite Eliot Carter and the soloist being the hot 28year old Jonathan Biss led to an exceptional evening. The scalpers and people looking for tickets in the crowed out front proved that there was some buzz too.

Eliot Carter’s Variations for Orchestra from the mid-1950s has obvious references many earlier composers: Ives, Schoenberg and Berg were obvious to me and I’m sure others caught more influences in the 10 variations. That said it was more Cater than anything else, like all worthwhile composers he is mostly himself. Carter was born in 1908 and has seen a lot of styles and has been influenced by many of them. The Met players played the variations well although they are difficult but after all they are used to playing a different style each night at the opera house, they are stars at adapting.

Jonathan Biss is well known already, although he is young, I was anxious to hear him play for myself. I was very happy with what I heard. His playing of the solo parts of the Schumann Piano Concerto were very mindful the works Romantic period but played with intelligence and feeling never with unnecessary flash. We may have come to a glorious time in performance history where intelligence is held in higher regard than gloss, or perhaps I’ve just been lucky lately. Levine and his forces also played in a restrained intelligent way, a perfect match.

The season started Oct 1^st with Lucia di Lammermoor, since then its been 7 operas a week, with the occasional Sunday for Carnegie Hall performances. For a last piece maestro Levine gave them Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4. This gives most of the musicians a chance to play all out and they seemed to have fun doing it. Not the most subtle music ever written but it gave each section a chance to strut itself. The audience loved it. At the end Levine asked each section to stand starting with the woodwinds and each section got a huge ovation. Levine got a larger ovation than and section and the whole orchestra the greatest ovation of all. It was fun for the audience too; it gave us a chance to thank them for a nice concert and a great season.