What happens in rehearsal doesn't stay in rehearsal. It unavoidably spills out on stage in concert, as it did Thursday night in an extraordinarily stylish and polished Philadelphia Orchestra concert led by Rafael Fr�hbeck de Burgos.
In a public consciousness shaped by unrelenting marketing messages, we're told that alchemy ignites almost inexplicably under the heat of the spotlight. But details like the ones heard Thursday night more accurately declare that, aside from Simon Rattle and Vladimir Jurowski, only Fr�hbeck can marshal this ensemble's discipline to a level that places it resoundingly alongside the global elite.
Fr�hbeck is, in a way, a beguiling figure. There's not a lot you can see from the listener's side of the footlights to account for his magic. But Weber's Overture to Oberon had that kind of solidity to string entrances - the sudden appearance of precisely aligned sound - that was a trademark of Wolfgang Sawallisch's most fastidious work. Exactitude wasn't a destination - it was a means for more human ideas. Instrumental sections were in perfect balance, there was a warmth and glowing aliveness to the string and wind sections, and - again like Sawallisch - Fr�hbeck reserved a few extremely effective turns of individuality for the end.
The 77-year-old Spaniard - who this week Musical America announced as its 2011 conductor of the year - embraced an even more sophisticated expressive range in Max Reger's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart (Op. 132). He brought sweetness and amity to the most unadorned appearance of Mozart's tune, taken from the gently rolling first movement of his Piano Sonata in A major (K. 331). Lovely orchestral textures, often enhanced by the glitter of two harps, were numerous. But the eighth variation was so highly developed in its interpretive detailing it could have stood on its own. It was fluid, operatic, urgent, compassionate - all in turns unfurling like a discrete musical tale.
A suite from Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier contained probably one of the most startlingly emotional moments I've heard from this orchestra - not in the billowy waltz material or the happily explosive opening, but in the hushed string section that arrives near the end. It had a simplicity, a spiritual purity, that made this section sound like the most profound few bars of music ever written.
Strauss was in the air, too, with what the orchestra says was its first performance of the Horn Concerto No. 2. Written near the end of his life, the piece came six decades after Strauss' first horn concerto, and stylistically the two couldn't be more different. In it, the horn is not merely heroic, romantic, and puckish; it has become something more capricious, an emotional artful dodger.
Orchestra principal hornist Jennifer Montone handily staved off its treacherous qualities, and even stitched together sensibly fluid phrasing in passages where connections aren't readily apparent. If her tone isn't your cup of tea - brash rather than refined, it is decidedly not mine - you could at least admire her brawn and a clear sense that nimbleness is just another route to being fearless.
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Additional performances:
8 p.m. Saturday and Tuesday at Verizon Hall, Broad and Spruce Streets. Tickets: $10-$120. Information: 215-893-1999; www.philorch.org.
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Contact music critic Peter Dobrin at pdobrin@phillynews.com or 215-854-5611. Read his blog at www.philly.com/philly/blogs/arts
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Music Review
Philadelphia Orchestra
With Rafael Fr�hbeck de Burgos conducting. 8 p.m. Saturday and Tuesday at Verizon Hall, Broad and Spruce Streets. Tickets: $10-$120. Information: 215-893-1999; www.philorch.org.
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