Tuesday night, the Philadelphia Orchestra made its Walt Disney Concert Hall debut; Wednesday, its debut in the new Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall of Costa Mesa. These concerts were also the first Southern California appearances of the Fabulous -- at least when they want to be -- Philadelphians with their current music director, Christoph Eschenbach.
The first and no doubt the last.
I can tell you what occurred in these curiously inconsistent concerts, which did include a great performance of Brahms' First Symphony. But I can't tell you why. For that you'll need to find a professional and a hundred or so couches. The psychology of this orchestra is beyond me.
The back story of Eschenbach's hiring against the will of many players has long been public. A cosmopolitan artist with broad interests and a pianist-conductor with a laser-beam sense of rhythmic focus came to Philadelphia full of fresh ideas but under a cloud that never lifted. Freshness was not wanted. Last year he was told the players disapproved of him and that his contract would not be renewed after it expires next season.
There were few smiles on the Disney and Segerstrom stages. I was struck watching the orchestra not watch Eschenbach during Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony on Tuesday night. It was a study in avoiding eye contact. Heads were turned every which way -- one bass player awkwardly angled his neck toward the Disney audience behind him. I presume the band travels with a masseuse.
Eschenbach has an ear for snappy, crunchy textures. Once passed through the Christoph Crisper, music old or new -- Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Berio -- can come out seeming just plucked from the vine. But Tchaikovsky's Fifth was iceberg lettuce barely thawed from the freezer, with still a toxic tang of Freon.
Despite stunning moments, the slick, sleek, coldly virtuosic performance compared poorly with the spectacular recording the orchestra made of the symphony with Eschenbach two years ago; the impression was that the musicians were out to make themselves sound good and the conductor look bad.
Yet the next night in Segerstrom, the Philadelphians were altogether brilliant in Brahms, a display of musical heart and soul controlling every finger moved and breath taken. On very rare occasions, you can tell a performance is going to take off from the first chord. There is something in the voicing of instruments, a rapt combination of tension and attention. Ego gets subsumed into sound. The experience is almost mystical.
