\n<\/p>\n
Beyond this reminder of Britten, Neuwirth folds in nods to other styles and works \u2014 crisp, courtly echoes of Baroque music; touches of louche, dirty blues; the solemn bells of Wagner\u2019s \u201cParsifal\u201d \u2014 in the eclectic manner of Berio\u2019s 1968 \u201cSinfonia\u201d<\/a> or Mahler\u2019s symphonies, to give a sense of the weight of history on modernity, sometimes oppressive and sometimes inspiring.<\/p>\n It struck me that the main structural challenge of \u201cHippogriff\u201d is that, with the voices representing activism and virtue, Neuwirth looks to her orchestra to provide evocations of both the world\u2019s repressive forces and the fertile, creative wildness out of which resistance might emerge.<\/p>\n The result, perhaps necessarily, is muddled \u2014 particularly over half an hour of quite repetitive musical and thematic material. The Berlin Philharmonic\u2019s performance, archived on its Digital Concert Hall platform<\/a>, offers, as a recording can, a more transparent capture of this dense work, and the sound of the boys in the T\u00f6lzer Knabenchor is more distinctive than the Brooklyn Youth Chorus\u2019s girls.<\/p>\n Played after a fresh, vibrant version of Lili Boulanger\u2019s dewy \u201cD\u2019un Matin de Printemps,\u201d \u201cHippogriff\u201d made a nice pairing with another crashingly grand piece in which triumph is touched with darkness: Prokofiev\u2019s Fifth Symphony, given a comfortably warm performance under Sondergard, the new music director of the Minnesota Orchestra, who made an impressive Philharmonic debut with this program. (Saturday was the last of three concerts.)<\/p>\n Both works contain subtle but crucial references to the finale of Beethoven\u2019s Ninth Symphony \u2014 Neuwirth in a brief passage of quiet, stalwart marching in the low winds (as well as in as her brotherhood-celebrating text), and Prokofiev in the bit of hymn in the low strings that sets off his Fifth\u2019s stirring conclusion.<\/p>\n Throughout the symphony, Sondergard kept the balances clear between the orchestra\u2019s sections, never losing the winds in the strings or the strings in the brasses. And the Philharmonic played vividly but without exaggeration, the climaxes blazing without blaring.<\/p>\n New York Philharmonic<\/strong><\/p>\n Performed on Saturday at David Geffen Hall, Manhattan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n