David Bowie recorded this with the Philadelphia Orchestra. The work returned this weekend, along with the orchestra’s family concerts.
Saturday’s was the first live family concert in more than 2 ½ years. And while the orchestra has done other things for children during the pandemic, nothing has the impact of a full, live orchestra.
For the opening Mozart and other works, Saturday’s Philadelphia Orchestra audience was noisy and restless. Then came Peter and the Wolf, and the dynamic in the hall switched.
Children are the best critics. They will tell you in real time how you’re doing, and it was heartening on this Saturday morning to watch orchestral music holding sway over yet another generation. There wasn’t a flit of the bird (flute) or creaky scold of the grandfather (bassoon) in Prokofiev’s score that didn’t produce an audible response from the crowd.
Coming back from pandemic hibernation, the orchestra has restored its opening-night gala, subscription concerts and other activities. But family concerts have been slower to return. Saturday’s was the first live family concert in more than 2½ years. And although the orchestra has done other things for children during the pandemic, nothing has the impact of a full, live orchestra on stage. We’ve missed these concerts terribly.
The return, though, brought both satisfaction and regret. Peter and the Wolf was a reminder that some things should never change. The 1936 work has children learning about the orchestra before they have a chance to realize it, and none of that power has dimmed.
This was especially obvious in the return of Michael Boudewyns’ charmingly handmade take on the tale. David Bowie once recorded this piece with the Philadelphians, sounding velvety and regal. Here, Boudewyns comes across like someone’s chirpy, antic uncle who decides to tell the story with improvised props found in the attic five minutes ago.
But you couldn’t help but wish that one thing had changed during the last 31 months. If this group hopes to ever truly be part of the majority-Black city that is, after all, in the ensemble’s name, it’s going to have to look out into its current audience and do something radical. I didn’t have a view of every single seat in Verizon Hall, but in three long scans I couldn’t see a single Black child.
The orchestra does care about modeling talent on stage so children can imagine themselves upon it someday. That’s one reason for showcasing winners of the Albert M. Greenfield Student Competition at these concerts. The future was easy to imagine in the hands of William Ge and Beatrice Chen.
Ge, 15, playing the first movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major, was notably fluid while gilding the music with spots of interpretive individualization. Chen this summer landed a spot in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, even while continuing to study at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music.
She had the harder job at this concert. The Paganini/Silverthorne Sonata per la grand’ viola isn’t a great piece of music, and yet she still managed to bring out its singing qualities and flash.
Lina González-Granados was another source of inspiration. She was back in town after ending her term as the orchestra’s assistant conductor, and, in Mozart’s Overture to the Marriage of Figaro, displayed her usual mix of command and easy rapport.
About the audience noise. Yes, it was distracting. But it’s important to remember that certain noises at a children’s concert mean something positive — parents explaining the music to children, spontaneous laughs and chatter. A special-needs listener to my left was loud enough to draw looks from orchestra members on stage. To me, these vocalizations were the sounds of success: full engagement. Next time, the orchestra might want to give out the twisty balloons after the concert (though you could hear the periodic pops as a form of audience-participatory percussion).
The orchestra could obviously build out its visual world in these presentations, but there is real wisdom in the stage being bare, save the ensemble and, for Peter and the Wolf, just Boudewyns and a small set of props. All the better to focus on the music. Here, Patrick Williams was the bird, his suave flute sound represented by Boudewyns flying a sheer yellow scarf at the end of a stick. Peter Smith’s throaty oboe was the duck, taking physical form as a feather duster. The hungry wolf (menacing horns!) was reduced to a piece of luggage.
If it sounds quaint and downscale, it was. Beautifully so. An antidote to modern life, this Peter and the Wolf. And if anyone thinks it paled next to the dopamine-releasing jolts of video games and other tech in our children’s lives, the families walking down the sidewalk still talking about the concert several blocks away suggested otherwise.
The Philadelphia Orchestra’s family concerts continue with a holiday concert Dec. 10; a program built around Grieg’s Peer Gynt Feb. 11; and a program on composer Florence Price March 25. Tickets are $22-$56. philorch.org, 215-893-1999.