Dancing with Pittsburgh

Techno beats were heard at Carnegie Hall during a concert by the Pittsburgh Symphony's Orchestra concert on Tuesday night. The unexpected beats were a "pre-recorded intrusion" in Sofia Gubaidulina's otherwise astonishing and powerful "Feast During a Plague" at its New York premiere.

It was one of two main works on the program (along with Brahms' Violin Concerto) conducted by Sir Andrew Davis, the orchestra's artistic advisor (it currently lacks a single musical director). The premiere was prefaced by a muscular performance of Beethoven's "Coriolan Overture." Davis led with very British style: refined, crisp, and a little jesting. The orchestra played with seamless unity and appropriate dramatic flair.

"If the 'Coriolan Overture' can be considered theatrical, then 'Feast During a Plague' is positively apocalyptic," Davis stated in an announcement made before performance. He called the premiere "a piece with a tough message." He delivered on the promise that the performance would be the "surprising and shocking."

The Russian-Tatar composer Sofia Gubaidulina is known for her idiosyncratically spiritual music. Yet there was nothing at all religious about "Feast During a Plague," a cacophonous and menacing piece that sounded profane through and through. Fleeting melodies, chilling harmonies, and unexpected orchestral couplings combine in a sinister work with starkly alternating textures. Jaunty and Charivariesque, it is a thoroughly wicked display of theatrical dissonance and experimentation: basses snapped back their strings while harps provided inconstant solace; cutthroat violins played with ironic glissando and twined in and out like a phonograph. The thoroughly engaging work is full of nightmarish arpeggios, cackling trumpets, and wailing horns, often building to moments of incredible tension. Thrilling in its dramatic force, the work seemed almost like a modern-day "Sacré du Printemps," until the unexpected-and unsuccessful-techno beats. The audience seemed thoroughly confused.

After intermission came the Brahms, with soloist Joshua Bell. This was a performance to savor, full of wild lyricism. Bell tore into the piece with fearless energy. It was a sharp, direct performance, both technically assured and interpretatively sophisticated, and full of coloristic variety. The cadenza was full of intricate amblings and subtle variation in tempo. In the Adagio, Bell showed his more lyrical side, which was tasteful and refined in spite of pervasive vibrato and occasional flourishes. Davis led the orchestra in a clear-headed reading that softened the tension often felt between soloist and conductor. The appreciative crowd rewarded Bell with ovations after the first movement and at the piece's proper end.

The final piece, Richard Strauss' "Till Eulenspiegel" seemed almost an afterthought. (A steady stream of audience members made its way to the exits after Mr. Bell's final bows). Remarkably, though, the orchestra succeeded in injecting new life into this popular and overplayed tone poem. The Pittsburgh musicians proved they had energy in them yet and gave an engaging and playful performance. Davis had a great sense for the work's drama. He jumped about excitedly and nearly doubled over while describing a descending figure in the horns. It was a satisfying close to a musically rich and programmatically helter-skelter evening.