Back for the third consecutive summer, the Philadelphia Orchestra has become a much-anticipated regular at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival.
But there was nothing regular about this world-class orchestra’s playing Friday at the Ford Amphitheater, as it opened a six-concert residency.
The ensemble’s abundant strengths were superbly displayed during the second half, when two complementary works were smartly paired, each offering a cauldron of emotions that boiled over.
Opening that portion of the evening was Sergei Rachmaninoff’s underperformed Symphonic Dances (1940), in which the composer sculpts an extraordinary musical landscape that provided an ideal showcase for the orchestra’s rich, powerful sound.
Particularly striking, especially for someone who does not have the opportunity to hear this orchestra regularly, was the plush, enveloping sound of the strings — a quality that has long defined this ensemble.
This sometimes strange, encompassing work offers an almost constant, unsettled swirl of emotions from the mournful, slow section of the first dance, highlighted by a poign ant solo by the unidentified alto saxophonist, to the fury of the grand witches’ sabbath.
Charles Dutoit, the orchestra’s chief conductor and artistic adviser since September, brought the work’s many contrasts into sharp relief in this adroitly shaped realization.
But the maestro was arguably at his best in the evening’s climax, Maurice Ravel’s “La Valse” (1919-20), in which he captured the oddly intoxicating music’s obsessive, almost maniacal drive and almost uncomfortable intensity.
The rumbling basses, and the subsequent uneasiness that open this work, foretell what is to come, but for several minutes all seems well, as the orchestra spins forth an ebullient waltz. But then the music, echoing all that was happening in Europe at the time, breaks down like a carousel spinning out of control.
In comparison, the first half’s rendition of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, Op. 73, “Emperor,” seemed almost ordinary.
Dutoit led a nicely detailed interpretation that did not try to oversell the work. Soloist Garrick Ohlsson demonstrated his usual deft touch, delivering notably expressive moments in the slow second movement.
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com
