Philadelphia Orchestra gives audience what it wants

The job of an orchestra has always been to walk a queasy line between leading public taste and following it, but you might excuse the Philadelphia Orchestra for leaning into the latter territory more often lately, given its precarious state. This is a year for learning to love the Philadelphians again.

Friday night's program reinforced the notion that if you give a certain large slice of the listenership what it wants, it will delight. Here it was Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 with Nikolaï Lugansky - in other words, a piece that has been building a fan base in Philadelphia for nearly a century, played by a pianist with buzz. Attendance has also firmed up since the program was presented only two times, rather than the usual three. Paying ticket holders rewarded performers by filling Verizon Hall to 98 percent capacity.

Packed houses pay dividends well beyond the financial. The spontaneous roar of cheers erupting at the end of the Rachmaninoff must have nourished musicians who have had an enervating year, and sent listeners home aglow with rekindled ardor. If the orchestra is to recover, this dynamic - recapturing the audience-performer bond - must play out over and over.

But it wasn't just a night for popular titles. Charles Dutoit led the orchestra in Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber, and while he didn't uncover the organlike massing of sound and delicate colors within once found by Wolfgang Sawallisch, he did bring broad drama. Dutoit aimed at propulsion - and heightening populist strokes, like the final exclamation points that later became key to John Williams' vocabulary. Oboist Peter Smith, five percussionists, and, on contrabassoon, Mark Gigliotti, contributed a high degree of character and dash.

Dutoit dug to deeper levels of interpretive meaning in Strauss' Also sprach Zarathustra (whose "Dawn," of course, still has a strong film association for many). This was true not only in the ensemble work, but also in places where, marionette-master-like, he counseled solos. It was wonderful to hear bassoonist Daniel Matsukawa going out on a limb with playing that was bold and shapely. You might be justified in thinking there was a relationship between Dutoit's engagement and the considerable distance his baton traveled when he lost his grip and sent it flying down an allée of startled but amused violists. The music seemed to stir something inside Dutoit. And so it did for us.

Lugansky had a big presence in the Rachmaninoff, more so than some others because of the size of his sound and the communicative way he had of pushing phrasing around liberally and thoughtfully. His extroverted mien meant that at no point was he in danger of being swamped by the ensemble. The orchestra has taken various approaches to the seductive powers of this score (long before Marilyn Monroe went to pieces to it in The Seven Year Itch), but Dutoit kept the sound generally lean, granting freshness to a piece that has sometimes been the recipient of sonic and sentimental excess. Of course, during a populist wave, it's only a matter of time before audiences have a chance to hear it once again the other way.

Contact music critic Peter Dobrin at 215-854-5611 or pdobrin@phillynews.com.

Read his blog at www.philly.com/artswatch