Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra Plays at Carnegie Hall

Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra at Carnegie Hall

Conductor, Andre Previn

Soloist, Denyce Graves

March 10, 2005 at 8 p.m.

Carnegie Hall stands firmly on New York City bedrock. On March 10, however, the hall housed the scorching sands of the Far East, the grasslands of pastoral Spain, and the wind-tossed seas of Ancient Greece. A visit from the Oslo Philharmonic painted musical portraits of these exotic regions in a program that featured works by Ravel and Gershwin.

Founded in 1871, The Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra is the most distinguished orchestra in Norway, and under the baton of music director Andre Previn, the players made a lasting impression on New York. The most exciting, all-encompassing piece performed was Maurice Ravel’s Alborada del Gracioso, which carried listeners away to bucolic Spain of the Middle Ages. “Alborada” is the Spanish equivalent of “dawn songs”—music’s answer to lyric poetry of the Middle Ages. These were thought to have been sung by a watchful friend who played lookout for two forbidden lovers, who would sing as dawn approached so that the lovers could part in safety.

The piece indeed sounded as soft and smooth as a chivalric lover’s caresses, and built to an almost ominous warning that would have signaled the approach of day.

What the Oslo Philharmonic really brought to life, however, was the second half of Ravel’s title: “Gracioso” refers to a jester or clown, and infused the pastoral dawn song with punches of Spanish dance flavor that were based on the rhythm of the Iberian dances in 6/8 and 3/4. What resulted was a portrait of pastoral Spain painted in the whites and golds of dawn splashed with pungent reds and oranges of lively Spanish dancing—an unlikely but exciting mix.

After the visit to pastoral Spain, the audience was whisked away to the Far East in Ravel’s Sheherazade, where mezzo Denyce Graves delivered a stunning performance. Her vocals ranged from deep, earthy, guttural tones to celestial soaring heights that, in lesser larynxes, might not get off the ground. The exotic East disappeared from view and the small Greek island of Lesbos appeared on the horizon in the second suite of Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloe. The timeless romance of Daphnis and Chloe was breathed into new life by the three flutes so central to the piece.

The audience was brought back to New York through George Gershwin’s Concerto in F Major. The Jazz Age Charlestoned onto the dance floor in the swinging Concerto, the fancy footwork conveyed through the dexterous fingers of Andre Previn, music director and soloist, on the piano. The Roaring Twenties in New York were never so alive. All in all, the Oslo Philharmonic provided a round-trip ticket to see the world in a variety of colors.