NEW YORK — It’s common knowledge that Robert Schumann suffered from severe mental-health issues; today he would likely be diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Less common was the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center’s choice to focus on Schumann’s distress as a thematic point for its program, heard Aug. 9, at the Wu Tsai Theater in David Geffen Hall. Whatever the reasoning behind it, the result was an exciting performance of the composer’s Symphony No. 2, not to mention an intriguing world premiere.
Under its music director, Jonathon Heyward, the festival orchestra is currently presenting its inaugural season as part of Lincoln Center’s third annual Summer for the City series. The mental-health theme is interwoven throughout the festival. Besides the Schumann, this program kept on topic with the world premiere of British composer Hannah Kendall’s orchestral work He stretches out the north over the void and hangs the earth on nothing.
The title comes from the Book of Job, specifically Job praising the very god who was torturing him with tragedy and illness. Kendall’s focus is the word “void” — indeed, in comments from the podium, Heyward connected that term with a phrase in one of Schumann’s letters, describing a moment of dark depths and void in his life. The more likely compositional inspiration for Kendall, however, was Haydn, not Schumann: He stretches out starts with a shapeless, yawning, distorted sound like the universe quivering — a 21st-century answer to the opening of The Creation.
Kendall often employs extended techniques on instruments, which she uses to fascinating effect in this work. The double basses slap their strings violently; the flutists switch several times to harmonicas, moving their fingers so fast that they blurred, making an eerie, reedy wobble. The orchestration is precise and ever-changing; individual string players flutter against each other, and trombones blat in their deepest register before it all tightens into Mahlerian intensity.
Percussionist David Punto manned a half-dozen pitched gongs and muttered indecipherable text into a distorting microphone. That fuzzy yet urgent voice, barely heard over the frantic orchestra, gave the impression of a pilot saying farewell over the intercom when the plane is about to crash. But arguably Punto’s most important function was to wind up several music boxes. They were the only thing left playing after the orchestral maelstrom died down. “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” has never sounded so comforting.
The Kendall was sandwiched between two Bach works — sort of. The first was Anton Webern’s arrangement of the Ricercar a 6 from the Musical Offering, which does, to a degree, still count as Bach. The orchestration is colorful but more late Romantic than Baroque, a fact that Heyward leaned into with a decidedly non-18th-century lilt and stretch to the rhythm, encouraging portamentos and downplaying dissonant suspensions. By the end, the orchestra had built to a climax worthy of Stokowski. Heyward was consistent in his vision, which was surely in sync with Webern’s; Bach might have scratched his head.
After the Kendall, the brilliant young American pianist Conrad Tao came out (and the winds, brass, and percussion left) for Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in A major. From the first moment of the opening ritornello, Tao’s playing was precise and detailed. Heyward pulled little bursts of energy from the lines with post-Baroque yet effective sforzandi and dynamic swoops. The first movement was a playful delight. In the second, Heyward kept the string sound solid yet never overwhelming, allowing Tao’s reserved and elegant cantabile sound — decorated with sparse yet clear ornaments — to flow unencumbered. In the buoyant third movement, Tao slid seamlessly from tutti accompaniment to sparkling solos.
The pianist then treated the audience to an encore of Elliott Carter’s preposterously virtuosic Caténaires, written in 2006 when the composer was 98. Despite the miniature work’s relentless speed and complexity, Tao was never less than musical and in complete control.
Schumann’s Second Symphony was a true test for the new orchestra; they weighed in at only 41 members yet proved they have the power of a group half again that size. They responded well to Heyward, letting him guide their growth throughout the first movement, from the earthy brass at the start through sweeping, energetic joy. That energy did not seem to grow quite as much as it could: The effect was big but safe. Likewise in the Scherzo, while the violins played their challenging 16th notes with sizzling clarity, the result was more family picnic than Bacchanalia.
Any doubts dissipated in the Adagio espressivo third movement, its ethereal chords evoking first longing and then quietude. The wind principals — Jon Manasse, clarinet; Ryan Roberts, oboe; Marc Goldberg, bassoon — spun gold as they wove their obbligato lines together. Heyward pulled the orchestra along a perfectly balanced celestial arc. The fiery final movement delivered the thrill that the first movement had missed by a hair, and the modest-sized orchestra proved that it can make a truly majestic sound.
