MUSIC Review: Fazil Say, Soloist, Composer and Even Conductor With Orpheus
APRIL 12, 2015
Orpheus advertises itself as a conductorless chamber orchestra, and for the most part it is one, and a fine one. But what is to stop a guest soloist from grabbing every opportunity to coordinate and shape the ensemble’s sound, as the Turkish pianist and composer Fazil Say did in Mozart’s Piano Concerto 23 in A on Saturday evening at Carnegie Hall?
Nothing, clearly. Mr. Say was all exuberance, using his hands, arms and head to usher in entrances, his whole body to propel outbursts. This is a familiar practice, and most other orchestras would call it playing and conducting, however laughable the conducting might often be.
But Mr. Say is actually very good at it. And when the results are as attractive as they were here, why quibble over terminology?
Musically and personally, Mr. Say has traveled a long way since his New York recital debut in 1995, which was raw and not entirely promising. On Saturday he put technical skills that were obvious even two decades ago to subtle, cultured interpretive use, especially at the hushed ending of the Adagio.
As in the recital, he was also represented here as composer, with his Chamber Symphony (Op. 62 in an obviously substantial catalog) in its New York premiere, showing continued development along Bartokian lines. Scored for string instruments alone, sometimes played percussively, the 20-minute symphony shows heavy Turkish and Balkan influences, with bent tones, pungent harmonies and syncopated rhythms.
Commissioned by Orpheus in its “American Notes” series, the work “dwells on the complexities of modern-day Turkey with a certain introspection,” Mr. Say writes in a program note.
Like another pianist now in the news, the Ukrainian Valentina Lisitsa, Mr. Say has experienced political adventures stemming from Twitter activity. In Turkey in 2013, he was sentenced to 10 months in prison for insulting Muslim values. The sentence was suspended for five years, barring further offense.
Orpheus made a strong case for the Say work, this time without any conductorial ministrations from him. The evening opened with a melting account of Wagner’s “Siegfried Idyll” and closed with an energetic romp through Haydn’s seldom heard Symphony No. 80 in D minor.
Haydn wrote most of his symphonies in major keys, and you might expect to find in this work of 1784 a latish throwback to his Sturm und Drang period. But no, the minor mode is basically just a coloristic device in this prevailingly sunny creation.