LINCOLN CENTER

Avery Fisher Hall
New York Philharmonic

Susanna Malkki - Conductor
Kirill Gerstein - Piano

Brahms - Variations on a Theme by Haydn
Harvey - Tranquil Abiding
Brahms - Piano Concerto No. 1

A clip of the artist...

"A rising star in the conducting world, the Finnish maestra Susanna Malkki makes her much-anticipated Philharmonic debut conducting Brahms’s ebullient “Variations on a Theme by Haydn” and his seething Piano Concerto No. 1, with Kirill Gerstein replacing an injured Jonathan Biss as soloist. Jonathan Harvey’s Buddhist-tinged “Tranquil Abiding” rounds out the program." 



A NYTs review...

Review: Susanna Malkki Makes an Immediate Impression

Though the Finnish conductor Susanna Malkki’s long-overdue debut with the New York Philharmonic on Thursday night gave me deep pleasure, the occasion also stirred up some annoyance with the Philharmonic’s leadership team. Where has this impressive 46-year-old artist been? How has it taken so long for the Philharmonic to invite her as a guest?

Accomplished, exuding quiet charisma, respected internationally for expertise in contemporary music and a wide swath of the standard repertory, Ms. Malkki could have been an exciting possibility to succeed Alan Gilbert, who has announced his departure, as music director in 2017. Alas, she is now bound for the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, where she takes over in 2016. In any event, as Ms. Malkki said in a recent interview, it is only reasonable for the New York Philharmonic to appoint a music director who has worked regularly with the orchestra and established a relationship with players and audiences.

Ms. Malkki made a great start at doing both on Thursday at Avery Fisher Hall, even though on paper the program might not have seemed ideal for making an immediate impression. The second half was devoted to a probing, audacious performance of Brahms’s teeming Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, with the extraordinary pianist Kirill Gerstein (taking the place of Jonathan Biss, who is nursing an injury). That Ms. Malkki collaborated so dynamically with Mr. Gerstein says much about her musicianship.

She had the first half to herself, beginning with an ebullient and imaginative account of Brahms’s “Variations on a Theme by Haydn.” That theme, a stately chorale (which many scholars assert was not actually composed by Haydn), sounded shapely and purposeful in the performance Ms. Malkki drew from the responsive players. But immediately in the first variation, she latched on to the investigative way Brahms explores this theme. Her inquisitive approach continued through the succession of variations: an elusive minor-mode one, a playful military march, a subdued variation rich with crawling counterpoint, and more, until the joyous finale.

Then Ms. Malkki led the Philharmonic’s first performance of the British composer Jonathan Harvey’s Buddhist-inspired 1998 piece, “Tranquil Abiding,” a work co-commissioned by the Riverside Symphony, which gave the world premiere in New York in 1999. Ms. Malkki has long admired Mr. Harvey, who died in 2012 at 73.

Ms. Malkki developed her command of new music during a seven-year tenure as the music director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris, which she left in 2013. Mr. Harvey’s mysterious 14-minute work is like an aural depiction of breathing and meditation. A slow-moving rhythmic gesture — an inhalation poised on a high note that slides to an exhalation on a lower one — runs through the piece. As the music breathes calmly, motifs and figures intrude: a burst of quiet brass, a darting riff in the woodwinds, fidgety melodic fragments. Sometimes these fleeting bits turn ominous and grating, like those thoughts that pop into your mind while meditating that, ideally, you are supposed to let go of. But in this case, the music is so interesting, and you almost want the intrusions to linger. Ms. Malkki could have picked a flashy contemporary piece, the better to wow an audience. Instead, she invited listeners into a mystical musical realm. The audience followed her, judging from the warm ovation.

In the Brahms concerto, all the dark, turbulent, Romantic fervor of the music came through. Yet, that Ms. Malkki and Mr. Gerstein play so much contemporary music (Mr. Gerstein, who made his Philharmonic debut in 2011, is also a jazz pianist) seemed crucial to their take on this youthful Brahms masterpiece. They were alert to every experimental turn and pungent harmonic twist. I have seldom noticed how obsessively Brahms relies on syncopated rhythmic writing in this score, even during pensive passages of the great slow movement.

Ms. Malkki’s auspicious Philharmonic debut should be a reminder to the search committee, and to audiences, that beyond the usual suspects there are other potential conductors around.