Photography by Chris Lee
Bell/Rustioni With The NY Philharmonic
(January 2025)
by Edward Sava-Segal
Daniele Rustioni makes a notable debut with the New York Philharmonic
“Daniele Rustioni, the Italian conductor poised to become the Metropolitan Opera's next Principal Guest Conductor, made an auspicious debut with the New York Philharmonic on Wednesday night, just steps from the Met’s home at Lincoln Center. With his expressive gestures and commanding presence, Rustioni showed no sign of nervousness, delivering an overall notable performance.
The evening’s soloist was the world-travelled yet still boyish-looking virtuoso Joshua Bell. Despite an apparent detachment, he infused his technically immaculate rendition of Dvořák’s Violin Concerto in A minor with deep emotional resonance. From the sumptuous opening theme to the effervescently dancing finale, he navigated with ease the fiendishly difficult passages, shaped by Dvořák’s non-idiomatic writing for the violin, while delivering the long, melancholy-imbued phrases of the Adagio with simplicity and warmth.”
“With his extensive experience supporting a variety of vocal soloists in the opera house, Rustioni crafted silken, unobtrusive accompaniments for Bell, while allowing the lush Romantic surges to flow effortlessly. Together, soloist, conductor and orchestra achieved a remarkable balance between the Brahms-evoking structure of the concerto and the syncopated rhythms and sonorities rooted in Bohemian folklore.”
“Recalled to the stage, Bell offered an unusual encore: a transcription for violin and harp of Chopin’s Nocturne in C sharp minor, Op. posth., which he performed with great delicacy, joined by the Philharmonic’s principal harpist, Nancy Allen.
The evening began with a work that the orchestra had not performed in decades: the Merchant of Venice Overture, one of 11(!) that the prolific Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco composed inspired by Shakespearean plays. A score aligned with neither interwar modernism nor neo-classicism is nevertheless infused with a cinematographic flair, even though it was conceived well before Castelnuovo-Tedesco came to the United States and delved wholeheartedly into composing music for Hollywood films. The Italian composer doesn’t offer listeners a summary of the plot. Instead, he confidently evokes characters and dramatic moments through a cohesive score that is more suggestive than illustrative. Rustioni highlighted the skilful orchestration, blending of dramatic and ethereal music. His meticulous attention to detail was evident in the Scheherazade-like moments that followed an introduction where Shylock is portrayed in similarly Oriental colours by strings playing in unison.”
“Having started with an oddity, the programme culminated in a well-trodden repertoire staple: Tchaikovsky's Symphony no. 4 in F minor. It was a rather brilliant performance with an ensemble that, occasionally prone to sounding uninvolved, seemed fully invigorated after the holiday break. Under Rustioni’s clear direction, the Philharmonic’s musicians illuminated the score’s unique character, marked by intense emotional contrasts, a rich orchestral palette and masterful construction.”
“His tendency to build tension by varying the tempo – starting slowly and then accelerating – was initially surprising but ultimately made sense, particularly in the first movement, with its episodic nature and constant ebb and flow. The wistful theme, introduced by Sherry Silar’s oboe and later echoed with heartfelt intimacy by bassoonist Judith LeClair, set the tone for a movement that delicately shifted between melancholy and tender warmth. Rustioni drove the Finale, with its whirlwind of Russian folk-inspired melodies, towards a triumphant conclusion, firmly maintaining momentum while simultaneously showcasing Tchaikovsky’s intricate orchestration.
One can only hope Rustioni will complement his forthcoming Met Opera tenure with further appearances at the Philharmonic.”
by Lane Raffaldini Rubin
This week the New York Philharmonic debuted another accomplished, youngish conductor - this time, the esteemed opera conductor Daniele Rustioni.
Rustioni is a familiar face next door at the Metropolitan Opera, where he has been making appearances in the pit since 2017 and where he will serve as Principal Guest Conductor starting in the fall, lending a hand to the overbooked Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin. In this program with the Philharmonic, Rustioni made a strong case for himself as a conductor of symphonic music as well as a welcome addition to the New York concert scene.
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Overture to The Merchant of Venice opened the program. Written in 1933 but last played by the Philharmonic in 1941, it was an intriguing choice for a curtain-raiser. Castelnuovo-Tedesco, a Jewish-Italian composer known for his film work in Hollywood, was a steadfast traditionalist and drew inspiration from historic literary sources for much of his music.
The piece opens with a crisp unison melody in the strings that quickly expands into textured, cinematic music in the full orchestra. The writing is tuneful and features curly orientalist lines in the oboes that pass around through the woodwinds and strings. A Hollywood-style violin solo was played with Golden-Age sound by concertmaster Frank Huang before a snarling unison string passage that elicited audible vocalizing from Rustioni himself. This music shows a clear debt to Camille Saint-Saëns’s bacchanale from Samson et Dalila (in character as well as in a handful of direct quotations) while pursuing a more narrative musical form. Hearing this music was like finding treasure in a grandparent’s attic: it showed its age (or, old-fashionedness) but its impeccable gilding and adornment still shone brightly when dusted off.
Joshua Bell then joined the Philharmonic for Dvořák’s Violin Concerto. When the Czech Philharmonic played this concerto in December with Gil Shaham as the soloist, it was an intimate, gentle reading of the piece. By comparison, Bell, Rustioni, and the Philharmonic gave a much grander statement without becoming ponderous.
Bell’s playing was seamless. He handled fast arpeggiated passages with resounding flawlessness and slow melodic lines with bright, singing tone. The third movement theme was snappy and genuinely dancelike. Rustioni leveraged his experience as an opera conductor to keep the orchestra completely in sync with Bell’s solo playing. The result was a rich accompaniment that made no sacrifices in color and attack. There were brief moments where Bell’s energy seemed to lapse (surprisingly, he did not play his part from memory, occasionally relying on sheet music) but Bell’s playing remains boyishly exuberant. As an encore, he played Chopin’s Nocturne in C-sharp minor—standard enough—with the unusual addition of harp accompaniment played by Nancy Allen of the Philharmonic. Here Bell had the yearning tone that I associate with his recording of John Corigliano’s music for the film The Red Violin, singing gorgeously in the mid and low range of his instrument. Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony was an ideal canvas for Rustioni and the Philharmonic. It showcased both Rustioni’s propulsive dramatic drive and mastery over contrasting characters as well as the Philharmonic’s facility in music of precision and intensity.
Tchaikovsky’s Fourth represents the explosion of sonata form that Mahler would later exploit in his symphonies. Tchaikovsky’s symphonic movements, unlike Bruckner’s, possess strong narrative contours that always drive the “action” forward and offer the listener legible forms.
In Rustioni’s reading of the piece, the first two movements give the sense of music that gradually unspools, with long melodic lines whose ends search for their next threads. Along the way, searing fanfares in the brass lead to the dreamy abstraction of masquerade-like waltzes and glimpses of foreboding crop up in the double-basses and brass. The end of the second movement exquisitely unravels when tight clusters of chords incrementally array into towering columns of ambiguous sound. The incomparably fun third movement, with its plucked strings and impossibly fast scribblings of woodwind figures was played to perfection and brought out a wide range of dynamics across the sections of the orchestra. Only in the last movement, with its triumphal music played so well by the Philharmonic players, does the piece respool itself. After this musical journey, the return of the fanfare from the first movement was immensely rewarding. The entire bloc of woodwinds was particularly strong in their various solo lines throughout the Symphony, as well as the timpani (played by Markus Rhoten) in its crucial role in this piece.
Rustioni’s conducting is one of embodiment. Accustomed to leading singers, he takes big breaths and shows in his face (especially his mouth) the kinds of feelings he wants to draw out of the musicians. He squats low to indicate pianissimo passages and unleashes courtly dance gestures if the music calls for it. … his conducting is always amiable, sincere, and without pretension.