Philadelphia Orchestra: Jurowski talks, then triumphs with Prokofiev

Somebody in Verizon Hall tried to make Vladimir Jurowski stop talking on Friday -- and failed.

One of the Philadelphia Orchestra's favorite guest conductors (among both musicians and audiences), Jurowski was giving a pre-performance explication of Prokofiev's Symphony No. 6 that was going on a bit longer than these things usually do. The symphony, he explained, is full of embedded quotations from Beethoven to Nikolai Myaskovsky, whose 27 symphonies are largely unknown in the United States. Then from the hall, somebody began applauding, as if to say, "That's enough." The conductor's response was cool, explaining why it's important to know these things, and assured the heckler "the symphony is short."

Ultimately, Jurowski delivered the most penetrating performance I've ever heard of Prokofiev's greatest and deepest symphony. The rest of the concert included Wagner's Parsifal prelude and Beethoven's Violin Concerto with Lisa Batiashvili playing provocative cadenzas by Alfred Schnittke that quoted numerous other concertos in ways Jurowski said tied together his program's disparate elements. The concert left no doubt of his lively musical mind, but also revealed a quixotic streak, and not for the first time.

Jurowski is a questioner. Why, for example, must Schubert's Unfinished Symphony go unfinished? A few years ago in New York, he conducted a completion, but one so unconvincing you wonder why it was worth his time. Rather more successfully. he recently performed early Mahler in its unrevised state with the period-instrument Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, along with the Parsifal prelude. In the latter, the clean, distilled blends he achieved (as heard on a recent radio broadcast) proved to be quite transferrable on Friday to the Philadelphia Orchestra, whose innate lushness, however enjoyable, wouldn't be right for Wagner's religious drama. You knew the piece had achieved more cumulative impact than usual when the final barrier to harmonic resolution felt like relinquishing of earthly life, a bit hesitant and apprehensive amid quiet determination.

The early-music community has challenged the dominance of the string section, and, intentionally or not, Jurowski reflected that in the prominence he gave to trumpets during the Beethoven Violin Concerto, even when playing was a repeated five-note motif that was more about the piece's inner function than its foreground meaning. Though Batiashvili is clearly a great talent with plenty of technique, charismatic sound and a handsome stage presence, her interpretive choices lacked the originality and freshness heard from her elsewhere, including her new Deutsche Grammophon recording of Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1. That's not unusual -- many violinists are intimidated by the Beethoven.

But were the Schnittke cadenzas in the first and third movements as unnerving for her as they were for this listener? She must have learned them recently, as she read them from a nearby music stand. And to what end? Schnittke quoted concertos from Vivaldi to Brahms with all the grace of someone flipping a radio dial. As much as I admire the dark humor of Schnittke's music, his cadenzas not only seemed like a failed P.D.Q. Bach stunt, but seriously sapped the momentum from the overall performance. Still, the audience went wild.

Response to the not-often-played Prokofiev symphony was also intensely positive, though it's hard to say how much that was enabled by the conductor's pre-performance talk. Jurowski discussed matters I hadn't picked up in my 30-year relationship with the symphony. But music isn't about information. Hidden quotations have to pull their weight musically to be anything but secret code. And there's not a note in this symphony that doesn't pull a great deal of musical weight.

The final movement's climactic clash of major and minor keys to which Jurowski referred, however, was revealing. The symphony opens with a haunting, serpentine melody representing a confluence of major and minor. Though most symphonies are a journey from conflict to integration, this one -- conceived as the composer was recovering from a concussion, as well as World War II -- goes from integration to disintegration. Besides being magnificently played, the performance was a high-def, 3-D reading that perhaps could only have come from the kind of analysis Jurowski discussed. Remember when Ricardo Muti performed operas in concert based on meticulously corrected critical editions? The corrections might not have meant much to listeners but were no doubt part of the conductor's process in emerging with a freshly energized performance.

Not clear was how Jurowski meant his closing comment, in which he hoped Prokofiev's angst wouldn't ruin everybody's weekend. The only truly depressing art is bad art. So the annoying Schnittke cadenzas had already taken care of that.

Contact music critic David Patrick Stearns at dstearns@phillynews.com

The program is repeated at 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Kimmel Center. Information: 215-893-1999 or www.philorch.org.

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