The Arts

CONCERT REVIEW |

A world premiere is always a significant event on an orchestral program, though it is not always an audience attractant. But when the premiere is by the young American composer and media darling Nico Muhly, dubbed "the hottest composer on the planet" by The Daily Telegraph, even symphonic audiences sit up and take notice. (So does The New York Times, which — according to Seattle Symphony staffers — sent a writer out to cover the Muhly premiere.)

So how was Muhly's new orchestral piece, "So Far, So Good"?

Well, so far, pretty good. Muhly's piece is enormously accomplished in many ways: technically assured, making clever use of stacked-up orchestral sonorities and the contrasting timbres of various instruments. The influences of famous minimalists Philip Glass and John Adams are everywhere, evident in the "So Far, So Good" score (not surprisingly, since Muhly has worked closely with Glass on film and stage projects). Constantly oscillating and repeated figures, expanded and punctuated now and then with brass outbursts, are the backbone of the new piece, which starts out with tentative dense chords and moves on to rippling, burbling arpeggios as the music grows and develops.

Particularly heroic efforts are required of the keyboard (Kimberly Russ) and harp (John Carrington), where repeated notes go on for so long — especially in the piano — that it must have required all the powers of concentration not to get lost in the score. At some point the music simply stops; there is little sense of closure or a destination.

Conductor Ludovic Morlot gave a clear and committed reading that illuminated the structure of the new work, which was jointly commissioned by the orchestras of Kitchener-Waterloo and Winnipeg as well as Seattle.

The program, which opened with the well-received premiere, went on to Schubert's classic "Unfinished" Symphony (No. 8), which got a graceful and spirited performance. The orchestra sounds great, particularly considering the number of substitute and extra players required (since about half the Symphony is currently busy playing Seattle Opera's "Attila").

The dessert was Marc-André Hamelin's exquisite performance in the Chopin Piano Concerto No. 2, so subtle and lucid and ruminative that it was like entering the landscape of a dream.

Melinda Bargreen (mbargreen@aol.com) also reviews concerts for 98.1 Classical KING FM.