NEW YORK – In 2017, conductor-composer-pianist Karén Hakobyan founded a small orchestra called Pegasus (not to be confused with the early-music ensemble of the same name). His mission has been to take an original approach to orchestral concert programming. Pegasus’ season opener Dec. 5 at the Kaufman Music Center, RAVEL150: Hidden Gems and Masterworks, was a case in point.
Hakobyan put together a dramatic arc of works that showed Ravel’s many facets and put him in a historical context, touching upon the composer’s — in a way, contradictory — associations with both impressionism and neoclassicism.
The program opened with Le tombeau de Couperin, Ravel’s tribute to innovative French Baroque harpsichordist and composer François Couperin (1668-1733). Built as an echo of a Baroque dance suite, the whole work is a sort of de facto oboe concerto: Principal Noah Kay shone throughout with a warm, lucid tone. The four-movement Tombeau starts with a Prelude, which Pegasus rippled through with a light, fluid touch. Hakobyan’s approach to the second-movement Forlane, inspired by the Italian folk dance called the furlana, was perhaps a touch too genteel. However, in the Menuet the orchestra dug deep into the Spanish-Arabesque modality (with fine playing from flutist Anna Urrey), and the closing Rigaudon was appropriately rambunctious yet cleanly articulated.
Ravel completed his homage to Couperin in 1917 — it was originally for solo piano; he orchestrated it two years later. Also in 1917, the young Sergei Prokofiev composed his Symphony No. 1 in D Major, which he called the Classical Symphony. Hakobyan’s inclusion of this contemporaneous Russian example of neoclassicism was a surprising but satisfying decision. Besides sharing Ravel’s fascination with the styles and techniques of earlier eras, Prokofiev also loved Ravel’s hometown of Paris and moved there in 1923.
Unlike Ravel, who borrowed ideas from the Baroque, Prokofiev used Haydn as his model and inspiration. The first movement is a Haydn sonata-allegro form on steroids, and Hakobyan had the players lean into Prokofiev’s harmonic excesses to great effect. The Larghetto seemed ungrounded and rhythmically meandering, but the orchestra recovered its focus for the stately Gavotte, which displays an early example of the angular style that Prokofiev would develop in works like Lieutenant Kijé and Romeo and Juliet. The finale, marked Molto vivace, was played with virtuosity and detailed dynamic control.
One of Hakobyan’s signatures is his commitment to writing at least one new arrangement for each Pegasus program. This time it was Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro for harp, flute, clarinet, and string quartet, composed in 1905. Haboyan showed genuine creative spark in adding in full sections of strings — but not constantly. The result was an intriguing and convincingly organic oscillation between chamber and orchestral sounds.
The soloist was Mariko Anraku, associate principal harpist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. (The fact that she also sat in as guest orchestral harpist for the whole concert demonstrates Pegasus’ communal, all-hands-on-deck element.) Anraku played with graceful expression, in complete agreement with Hakobyan’s lushly impressionistic interpretation; she had great power, too, when called for, and her unaccompanied passage was mesmerizing. Other featured players were guest concertmaster Ruggero Allifranchin and principal cello Ari Evan.
The program’s second half started with Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte (1899), when the composer was still a student at the Conservatoire de Paris. One might call it a kind of neoclassicism in that it references an older time, both in the use of the Baroque term “pavane” and in the programmatic historical (if fantastical) reference to a princess (Spanish, in Ravel’s imagination). Hakobyan took advantage of this example of Ravel at his sweeping, melodic best. The tightly prepared wind section and, most notably, hornist Jasmine Lavariega played with a mournful serenity that turned to an aching sweetness in Ravel’s sudden switches to major.
Against orchestral programming tradition, this concert ended with a concerto. Nicolas Namoradze played Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major. Namoradze’s technical brilliance is undeniable, but his playing lacked warmth. This issue was most prominent in the slow second movement, when his smart efficiency was at odds with the orchestra’s dreamlike quality; Merkin Hall’s bright, unforgiving acoustics exacerbated the problem. In the final Presto, however, Namoradze’s dazzling precision was exactly what was needed, and Hakobyan helped bring out Ravel’s energetic humor. More astonishing was the encore, Namoradze’s own piano transcription of the “Danse génerale” from Daphnis et Chloë. Even Liszt would have been impressed.
The 2026-27 season will mark Pegasus’ 10th anniversary. Hakobyan promises “ambitious programming,” as well as the inauguration of a concerto competition.
