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Holst\u2019s \u201cThe Planets\u201d is one of the Thanksgiving feasts of classical music. It seduces with variety of color and texture \u2014 just as tangy cranberry compote refreshes after buttery mashed potatoes \u2014 but tends to leave you overstuffed.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve never heard it when it wasn\u2019t at least a little too much. But, played with vigor by the New York Philharmonic under Dima Slobodeniouk on Wednesday evening at David Geffen Hall, it didn\u2019t have me moaning with overindulgence, as some \u201cPlanets\u201d performances do. It felt like an ideal way to ring in a holiday that\u2019s all about bounty.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
There was punchiness in \u201cMars\u201d and genuine playfulness in \u201cMercury,\u201d and Slobodeniouk was agile in guiding the orchestra through the hairpin transitions of \u201cJupiter.\u201d That section\u2019s noble hymn theme was less strings-heavy than usual, flowing with ease.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
That Ligeti\u2019s \u201cAtmosph\u00e8res\u201d<\/a> is, like \u201cThe Planets,\u201d<\/a> indelibly associated with the extraterrestrial is due less to its title than to its inclusion (without its composer\u2019s permission) in the soundtrack of \u201c2001: A Space Odyssey.\u201d<\/p>\n Written in 1961, not quite half a century after Holst\u2019s tone poem, the sumptuously eerie \u201cAtmosph\u00e8res\u201d on Wednesday felt a bit like the son or grandson of \u201cThe Planets.\u201d Ligeti\u2019s queasily unsettled sound world seemed a direct descendant of the stunned stillness at the start of \u201cSaturn,\u201d the uneasy simmering after the march drops out in \u201cUranus\u201d and the gaseous, hovering mystery of \u201cNeptune.\u201d Neither of these works was played with super-polish at Geffen, but under Slobodeniouk both had vibrant drama.<\/p>\n Those tried and true \u201cPlanets\u201d aside, this wasn\u2019t a concert of chestnuts. The orchestra revived \u201cAtmosph\u00e8res\u201d to cap its commemorations this fall of Ligeti\u2019s centennial; it hasn\u2019t presented the piece (except as it\u2019s excerpted in the \u201c2001\u201d score) since 1978. And it is performing Julia Perry\u2019s 1951 \u201cStabat Mater\u201d this week for the first time ever<\/a>.<\/p>\n Perry\u2019s brief \u201cStudy for Orchestra\u201d was, in 1965, the first music by a Black woman to be played on a Philharmonic subscription program. It was brought back last year<\/a>, but the \u201cStabat Mater,\u201d scored for strings and a vocalist, is a far more powerful work. Heated yet subtle and restrained, the piece\u2019s 10 sections on a Latin text, lasting about 20 minutes in all, chart an intimate drama whose moments of grandeur are all the more effective given the overall modesty.<\/p>\n In the short prelude, light yet pungent pizzicato plucks \u2014 amid brooding low strings and an elegiac solo violin \u2014 movingly evoke Jesus\u2019s mother\u2019s tears without feeling too obvious. Throughout, Perry gives both voice and orchestra an appealing combination of Neo-Baroque angularity and post-Romantic warmth. The quivering, high-pitched flames of \u201cthe fire of love\u201d near the end are reminders that this piece and \u201cAtmosph\u00e8res\u201d date from the same era.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The mezzo-soprano J\u2019Nai Bridges<\/a> sang with oracular authority in the somber vocal lines, rising to flashes of intensity. There were passages in which a more encompassing, contralto-style richness in the low register would have filled out this music. But Bridges\u2019s focused tone was just right for Perry\u2019s poignant austerity.<\/p>\n The violinist Sheryl Staples, in the concertmaster chair, played with sweetness and eloquence in both the \u201cStabat Mater\u201d and Holst\u2019s \u201cVenus.\u201d That section of \u201cThe Planets\u201d also featured a beautifully mellow flute solo by Alison Fierst, leading into rhapsodic lines from the orchestra\u2019s longtime principal cello, Carter Brey.<\/p>\n Oh, and for at least one night, the \u201cfireflies\u201d \u2014 the lights over the Geffen stage that do a flickering up-and-down dance before concerts, in corny imitation of the chandeliers that rise before curtain at the Metropolitan Opera next door \u2014 were stilled.<\/p>\n Might they stay that way forevermore? That would be something to be thankful for.<\/p>\n New York Philharmonic<\/strong><\/p>\n This program repeats through Saturday at David Geffen Hall, Manhattan; nyphil.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n