\n<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not every day that a critic gets to review a premiere by Ravel.<\/p>\n
He died almost a century ago, after all. And while some previously unknown works have come to light over the years, it happens<\/a> considerably less than once in a blue moon.<\/p>\n So my pen was out and alert on Thursday at the New York Philharmonic\u2019s delightful concert at David Geffen Hall, practically vibrating with the opportunity to be among the first to weigh in on a piece by the creator of some of music\u2019s most enduring and gorgeous classics.<\/p>\n The work that the Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel, its incoming music director, were playing, part of a program celebrating Ravel\u2019s 150th birthday, was long assumed to be lost<\/a>. Written around 1900, when Ravel was still a conservatory student stormily at odds with the musical establishment, the score for selections from a cantata called \u201cS\u00e9miramis\u201d turned up at an auction in 2000, when it entered the collection of the Biblioth\u00e8que Nationale de France.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n An entry in the diary of one of the composer\u2019s friends, the pianist Ricardo Vi\u00f1es, indicates that it was played, probably as a class exercise, in 1902. (\u201cIt is very beautiful,\u201d Vi\u00f1es wrote.) There\u2019s no record of it being performed in public between then and Thursday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Grave and gloomy, bronzed by the low luster of a gong, the first section rises to the dramatic punch of an opera overture. The music then accelerates into a gaudy Orientalist dance that looks back to the Bacchanale from Saint-Sa\u00ebns\u2019s \u201cSamson et Dalila\u201d and the \u201cPolovtsian Dances\u201d of Borodin, one of the Russian masters Ravel adored.<\/p>\n This \u201cPr\u00e9lude et Danse\u201d is over in five minutes. (The third surviving section, for tenor and orchestra, will be premiered in Paris in December.) The piece is most intriguing as a preview of what was to come: For one thing, Ravel divides the string sections into multiple parts to increase the complexity of the textures, a technique he would use in later masterpieces like \u201cDaphnis et Chlo\u00e9.\u201d<\/p>\n The Suite No. 2 from \u201cDaphnis\u201d followed the little chunk of \u201cS\u00e9miramis.\u201d This was clever programming, but it came together just a few days ago. The star pianist Yuja Wang, the Philharmonic\u2019s artist in residence this season, was supposed to join the orchestra for both of Ravel\u2019s piano concertos, but dropped out because of a health issue.<\/p>\n Dudamel and the orchestra traded out the concertos for two Ravel suites, \u201cDaphnis\u201d and the exquisite \u201cMother Goose.\u201d The Ravel pieces were bookended by Var\u00e8se\u2019s industrial-size \u201cAm\u00e9riques\u201d and Gershwin\u2019s jazzy chestnut \u201cAn American in Paris,\u201d for what ended up being an excellent immersion in the first three decades of the 20th century.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n With well over 100 players, \u201cAm\u00e9riques\u201d begins plaintively, like Stravinsky\u2019s \u201cRite of Spring,\u201d but gears up fast into the first of a long series of granitic explosions, with a siren periodically wailing. Powerful but not blaring, the Philharmonic conveyed the work\u2019s elemental force.<\/p>\n On this program, you were more aware than usual of Var\u00e8se\u2019s subtlety and range of colors, as in the languid alto flute at the start that reached across the concert to connect with the great flute solo in \u201cDaphnis.\u201d In the jeweled atmosphere of the quiet parts of \u201cAm\u00e9riques,\u201d like the steady beat in the harp and celesta as muted brasses wandered, there was a sensual suavity not so far from the fairy tale fragrance of \u201cMother Goose.\u201d<\/p>\n The Philharmonic played both Ravel suites with just the right delicate freshness, and Dudamel\u2019s tempos felt natural: unpressured yet never sluggish. The different sections of the orchestra were balanced with poise, as in the oboe just peeking out from behind the silky violins in the second section of \u201cMother Goose.\u201d<\/p>\n The final dance in \u201cDaphnis\u201d had, in the context of this program, a ferocity that recalled Var\u00e8se. And \u201cAn American in Paris,\u201d which usually comes across as blithe, was quite different, its brassiness more relentless, its structure almost as arbitrary-feeling as that of \u201cAm\u00e9riques.\u201d As with any good musical pairing, the shift in perception went both ways: Var\u00e8se\u2019s urbanity suddenly seemed a little more cheerful, Gershwin\u2019s a little more brutal.<\/p>\n Coherently programmed and terrifically played, the evening was a showcase for big sounds and repertory staples. If the brief \u201cPr\u00e9lude et Danse\u201d from \u201cS\u00e9miramis\u201d got a bit lost in the shuffle, it still offered a glimpse of a rising star.<\/p>\n My report? Not bad for a kid.<\/p>\n New York Philharmonic<\/strong><\/p>\n This program continues through Sunday at David Geffen Hall, Manhattan; nyphil.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n