THE STAR-LEDGER
February 28, 2005

Featured soloist displays his charm
Bradley Bambarger

Kurt Masur was known as a paragon of core German musical values during his 1991-2002 tenure as the New York Philharmonic's music director. Yet in New Jersey and New York concerts with the Orchestre National de France late last week, audiences were able to see the conductor in another context, one that traded solidity and grandeur for pleasures more lithe and sensuous.

Of course, Masur ranged far beyond Beethoven and Brahms in his New York years, leading performances of French music with a higher degree of grace than is usually remembered. There was something undeniably special, though, in the performance Friday at NJPAC's Prudential Hall, the second stop on the French National Orchestra's first U.S. tour with Masur, its music director since 2002.

The concert was a feast for the senses, thanks not only to the rapport between Masur and his stylish French players but to the tour's featured soloist, Jean-Yves Thibaudet. Arguably today's foremost performer of Debussy and Ravel (although hardly limited to that), the French pianist combines glittering insouciance with acuity and substance.

Blond, tall and rail-thin -- and with seemingly endless arms and a perpetual smile -- Thibaudet gave accounts of Debussy's Fantasie for Piano & Orchestra and Ravel's Piano Concerto in G that were as enthralling for their idiomatic communion with the orchestra as for their solo charms.

Despite Debussy's Fantasie of 1890 being an early, ultimately abandoned work, it brims with those qualities beloved of his later masterpieces. Moreover, everything that is magical about music emanates from this piece, with classical cliché replaced by the sound of surprise. On Friday, the Fantasie's dreamy opening was simultaneously lush and clear; the violins, divided antiphonally, were ideally evanescent, like a breeze rippling the water in the fountain of a Japanese garden. A heart-easing wind solo led to Thibaudet's undulating entry, encapsulating his way of underpinning languor with vigor.

Ravel's Concerto in G is a transcontinental product of the Jazz Age, with its outer movements revealing the influence of Gershwin and the central Adagio channeling Mozart. There's also a bit of the blues in there, as well as the Spanish tinge so often in Ravel's music. Thibaudet's delivery of the pensive solo introduction to the Adagio underlined his rare ability to invest even sotto voce playing with dynamic scope. When the orchestra's principal flute, the wonderfully fluent Philippe Pierlot, joined to give breath to that aching melody, it was like seeing a smile slowly brighten a tear-stained face. In Ravel, deep emotion is always invoked in moderation; with the finale kicking in, it sounded like there was a kitten on the keys as Thibaudet raced along, the winds playing piquant catch-up for a scintillating finish.

On par with Ravel's brilliant orchestration is that of Rimsky-Korsakov, and his 1890 tone poem-cum-concerto for orchestra "Sheherazade" can be an exciting showcase for an ensemble's range of color. The French National's performance was vividly colorful but off-putting at first, with concertmistress Sarah Nemtanu rushing one solo phrase only to be patient in the next. Those trademark waves of orchestral rhythm, too, seemed stiff. Yet it was like having a new, capricious conversation partner -- what at first seemed idiosyncratic soon became captivating.

Namtanu's pure, silvery violin tones took on a Gypsy verve with double-stopping, and the orchestra's response eschewed the usual romantic smoothness to invest each phrase with bracing, individualist energy. First cello Jean-Luc Bourré and all of the superb wind principals played ravishing solos. Masur obviously relished the fresh sound, by the end beaming as much at his players as at the elated audience.