THE HANGOVER REPORT – Maestro Jaap van Zweden commences his farewell as Music Director of the NY PHILHARMONIC

Jaap van Zweden commences his farewell as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic with a program comprised of the Mozart Requiem and Sofia Gubaidulina’s Viola Concerto (photo by Adrian Dimanlig).

This week, Maestro Jaap van Zweden commenced his official farewell as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic (he assumed the coveted position just in 2018). Over the course of the next few weeks, the Dutch conductor is slated to lead the New York forces in a series of concerts, culminating in three anticipated performances of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony — a piece with close associations with the Philharmonic — which coincides with the conclusion of the orchestra’s subscription season. Beginning next season, the charismatic and hugely popular Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel will be taking on the mantle as the orchestra’s next Music Director.

This week, however, saw van Zweden conducting the fascinating pairing of the Viola Concerto by Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina and the warhorse that is the Mozart Requiem. The performance of Gubaidulina’s 1996 piece — a premiere for the ensemble — was thoroughly captivating, despite demanding my utmost attention. Beginning in hushed mystery, the concerto emerged in surges of dark, brooding melancholy, with occasional oubursts of unsettled dissonance. Throughout, soloist Antoine Tamestit embraced the somberness of it all with an unwavering performance that stared right into the troubled soul of the piece.

Then came the Mozart Requiem to cleanse the palette a bit. Indeed, as if in direct response to Gubaidulina’s Viola Concerto, van Zweden went with relatively fast tempos, resulting in a bright and upbeat reading — ironic, really, for a requiem mass, but a welcome contrast to the oppressive cadence and tone of the previous piece. The Philharmonic responded to their Music Director’s reliably clean, sturdy conducting with buoyancy and clarity, particularly evident in the eloquence of the strings. The four soloists were young, game, if only occasionally transcendant. Especially noteworthy, however, was soprano Amanda Forsythe, whose singing — characterized by stylish phrasing and luscious tone — invariably rose to the level of the poetry of Mozart’s music.

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