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Philadelphia Orchestra: Great in a pinch, good Vaughan Williams

For all of its reputed fabulousness, the Philadelphia Orchestra is also known for its winter contingency concerts.

David reviews the Philadelphia Orchestra, led by YNS, with guest artist Emanuel Ax. (Handout art.)
David reviews the Philadelphia Orchestra, led by YNS, with guest artist Emanuel Ax. (Handout art.)Read more

For all of its reputed fabulousness, the Philadelphia Orchestra is also known for its winter contingency concerts.

Most famously, Wolfgang Sawallisch once played Wagner on piano while weather-delayed orchestra musicians trickled in. On Thursday, music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin could not muster enough musicians for Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 4, so he substituted Ravel's Mother Goose Suite on four-hand piano with himself and none other than Emanuel Ax. Nice - especially in Ax's treatment of the music's playful, gamelan-tinged exoticism.

But what could have been a throwaway novelty was even nicer: Concertmaster David Kim and Ax played an isolated movement of Beethoven's Violin Sonata No. 5 ("Spring") with such chemistry that those two should give an entire cycle of Beethoven sonatas. The half-full-plus Verizon Hall responded as if hearing something singular - because it was.

On Friday, the Vaughan Williams Fourth made a belated Philadelphia Orchestra debut in a passionate first step in the building of a local performance tradition for this composer's least characteristic work. Composed in 1930-34, it almost matches Mahler's existential despair. In place of his usual pastoral imagery, Vaughan Williams chose thematic material more serviceable than melodic, with a scherzo that has the bite and edge of William Walton.

Although the piece felt a bit musty, the orchestra took to the string writing wonderfully. In contrast to the composer's own swift, tough (but haphazardly played) recording, Nézet-Séguin was more like an insightful outsider than one conducting the symphony from the inside out. In the mysterious second movement, Jeff Khaner's concluding flute solo had great covert eloquence. But the rest of the movement? Not so much.

Haydn's Symphony No. 92 ("Oxford") was tight and explosive at both concerts but soared on Friday. Haydn's exterior charm was there, but his inexhaustible thematic ingenuity is his ticket to immortality, and that's what Nézet-Séguin delivered. Harmonic function, counterpoint, and thematic development were all of a piece, emerging clear and alive. The orchestra's luster was secondary (as it should be in Haydn) but still very much there.

Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 went quite well both days, although on Thursday, Ax had more fury (when appropriate). And in more lyrical sections, Ax gave each musical idea its own time zone, one that began and ended in the right places, but in between allowed him infinite flexibility to go with his thoughts and feelings of the moment. How often does that happen?

dstearns@phillynews.com.