It`s no fluke that the MET Orchestra - the orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera – has established itself as one of the world's great orchestral ensembles. Over at the Met, the orchestra maintains a grueling schedule of rehearsals and seven-weekly performances lasting anywhere from two to six hours. (The much-celebrated Vienna Philharmonic follows a similar model, its members culled from the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera.) The end result is that these guys can play pretty much anything you put in front of them – and play the hell out of it.
“From one point of view, you could say they don’t have experience with this repertoire; from another point of view—which has seemed to be the prevailing one—it is marvelous to hear a great orchestra that’s fresh to that repertoire…By having a composer's orchestral works side by side with their operatic repertoire, the orchestra sees connections that wouldn’t otherwise be available.”
I'd be happy hearing this orchestra play just about anything, but for me, the main draw at yesterday's Carnegie Hall concert was Olivier Messiaen's Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum (1964), the Met's contribution to the ongoing Messiaen 100th birthday festivities. (They've left his opera Saint Francois d'Assise to City Opera, which they'll perform next season.)The 30 minute piece (which translates as: "And I await the resurrection of the dead") is divided into five movements, each inspired by a passage from scripture. It is a thoroughly modern, yet meditative work, with occasional outbursts of clashing gongs that resembled the "Great Noise" of Tenebrae in their terrifying volume. The wind and percussion ensemble was tightly gathered at the the center of the Carnegie stage, aiding the sense of isolation.
Et exspecto was bookended by a pair of works from the old Viennese school. Beethoven's Grosse Fugue, transcribed here for string orchestra, was a marvel of precision, punctuated by deep, groaning bass. And, Christian Tetzlaff – Levine's preferred violinist – joined the orchestra for the Brahms Violin Concerto: an old war horse which indeed sounded crisp and new under these players. Teltzlaff played with almost violent energy – particularly the 3rd movement, which he attacked like a man possessed. 