THE NEW YORK TIMES
February 20, 2002

PLAYING FOR THE MAESTRO IN A SHOW OF AFFECTION
By Paul Griffiths

Friday night's Philharmonic concert at Avery Fisher Hall was a buoyant occasion, a feast of orchestration provided by masters from Schubert ("Unfinished" Symphony) to Henri Dutilleux ("The Shadows of Time"). It was also a feast of full-blooded orchestral playing, given by an orchestra whose affection for Kurt Masur is coming right to the surface in these closing months of his tenure as music director.

Performing with no soloist to distract attention from the main business at hand - themselves - the players made strong sound, sound that was sometimes sweet (especially from the clarinet and oboe principals) but more often a touch gritty, sound that spoke and shook, the way Mr. Masur likes it. This is evidently the way his audience has also come to like it, for the acclamation after the closing work, Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition," was tumultuous.

As before at the Philharmonic, Mr. Masur chose the orchestration by Sergei Gorchakov, which has some claims over the familiar Ravel version in following Mussorgsky's bare harmony at points where Rimsky-Korsakov, whose edition was Ravel's source, tidied things up. Whether the Gorchakov score is more Mussorg skian in orchestral sound is another matter, but with a large brass section based on two tubas it is certainly more massive, and Mr. Masur and his musicians hurled its great weights impressively.

The same people were highly effective in Mr. Dutilleux's piece, which came off in rather the same way. Perhaps some of the potential for subtlety was missed, but these oily colors had a magic of their own, and the music's development from a mighty peal of bells - tones chiming down a long arpeggio and disappearing into the distance - was strongly brought out. It sounded a more robust, rugged work than hitherto and was appropriately graced by the warm, sure and direct voice of the soprano Emily Halpern in the short vocal solos of the middle movement.