Concert Review: The Martha & Chuck Show

I once had a dream in which two lions of classic music played the leading roles -- pianist Martha Argerich and conductor Charles Dutoit.

The dream was set in the kitchen of a Mediterranean villa. Dutoit was backing out of the room as Argerich threw china plates from a sideboard at him.

I know not whether Argerich and Dutoit were married in my dream, but once upon a time they were in real life and my nocturnal interlude with them may not have been far fetched.

These are two fiery people, and the passion with which they imbue their performances was never more evident than on Friday afternoon as Dutoit conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra and Argerich galloped through a brilliant reading of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-Flat Major in Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia.

Catching the Martha and Chuck Show, as the Dear Friend & Conscience and I call it, has become a biennial treat for us.

We last saw them at Carnegie Hall in New York City during the Philadelphia Orchestra's annual sojourn to that great room, a ritual that began in the 1930s when orchestra was led by the legendary Leopold Stokowski, one of only an extraordinary six music directors in its 1007 years. (Dutoit was recently named the Philadelphia's chief conductor for the next four seasons.)

Anyhow, the box office had misplaced our tickets, so we were comped to the front row.

Carnegie Hall has a sound to die for no matter where you sit. But while those seats were worth bragging about, they were a little too close to the action. In contrast, the seats that the DF&C had gotten as a birthday treat for me at the Kimmel Center were in the first tier with a commanding view overlooking the left side of the stage. (I daresay that the Kimmel, with sumptuous hand-crafted hardwoods from ceiling to floor, may even be acoustically superior to Carnegie Hall.)

Argerich launched into the Allegro con brio, the opening movement of the Piano Concerto No. 2, with the Dutoit-led orchestra pared down to the size and composition of the ensemble that played behind Beethoven. That is, mostly strings.

I had begun to leave my body during the Adagio, the second movement, and had entered another realm altogether -- ears wide open and eyes shut -- as Argerich glided into a magnificent solo in the Rondo: Molto allegro, or third and final movement.

Beethoven began composing the concerto in 1790 but did not complete a transcription of the piano solo until 1801 and only then at the insistence of his publisher. He had not written out that part of the score because he always had played the solo himself.

While I am a huge fan of both Ludwig and Martha, I am not knowlgedeable to know how literal her reading of the original score was. For all I know there was no sonic resemblance although she may have matched the original note for note.

I have listened to enough music -- be it covers of jazz and rock standards, let alone classical -- to know that doesn't really matter. But I – or rather we -- are going to try anyway.

The DF&C noted that Argerich’s passion seemed to be drawn from different hemispheres. That works for me.

Argerich is Argentine-born and a resident of Switzerland who has played with every major orchestra in the world. Dutoit is Swiss, has homes in five countries, has visited over 170 countries and has led every major orchestra in the world.

The rest of the Kimmel program, which sans Argerich, also was to die for: Sibelius's Finlandia and Sheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov. First violin David Kim, principal cellist Hae-Ye Ni, harpist Elizabeth Hainen (I think), and tuba player Carol Jantsch, who is less than a year out of college, were especially outstanding in the latter work.

There is much talk in the classical music world about whether the genre is dying because its core audience is literally doing so, as well as whether orchestras have not done enough to modernize their repertoires because they need to do so to attract younger listeners. Indeed, the vast majority of the capacity crowd at the Kimmel Center performance was well on the far side of 60 years old.

Other observers say that the death of classic music is greatly exaggerated and too big a deal is being made of the lineage of the repertoires and listener demographic. In other words, play it well no matter what it is and they will come no matter who they are.

This is one argument in which I am unable to take sides because my heart and ears betray whatever I may feel in my head.

All I know is that the DF&C and I were treated to fresh retellings of three masterpieces by one of the finest classical orchestras anywhere led by one of the finest classical conductors anywhere in one the finest concert halls anywhere. And then there was Martha Argerich, who may be the finest classical pianist anywhere.