Bow down to the Vienna Philharmonic’s tremolo.
This is the trembling, hazy effect that string players can make by lightly quivering their bows. Usually very quiet, signifying tension or expectation, tremolos are often designed to be listened past. They don’t tend to be something anyone dwells on or remembers.
But passing details of texture like this are what the Viennese — who had their annual three-concert stand at Carnegie Hall this weekend, with pillars of the repertoire by Mozart, Schubert, Bruckner and Dvorak — do better than perhaps anyone else.
In moments as different as the start of the grand Finale of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony and the opening of the charming “At the Mill” Scherzo of Stravinsky’s Divertimento from “Le Baiser de la Fée,” the Philharmonic’s tremolo was something to take seriously.
Soft but alert and full of energy, the vibrating was less a sound than an atmosphere, an almost palpable animating of the air. It wasn’t distracting, but it was arresting — infusing and enriching the music layered atop it.
The Philharmonic achieves little wonders like this regardless of who’s on the podium. Still, the proud, vigorous dignity of these concerts can be at least partly ascribed to Riccardo Muti, in programs notable for including two symphonies by Schubert, one of his touchstones.
At 83, Muti is basking in the twilight of a storied and beloved career. He officially left the music directorship of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra two years ago, but has been helping to care for it until the 29-year-old Klaus Mäkelä can take over in 2027. In January, Muti toured with the Chicagoans to Carnegie; with these Vienna concerts, his winter in New York has felt like a victory lap.
His style is no-nonsense: songful yet firm. The Philharmonic’s performances were not the place to go for idiosyncratic tempos or willful phrasing, but for spirited and unimpeachable performances of totemic standards. And, for good measure, a couple of glances off the beaten path: the Stravinsky, which is heard more often as the score for a classic Balanchine ballet, and Alfredo Catalani’s heart-on-its-sleeve “Contemplazione,” a nod to Muti’s championing of lesser-known Italian composers.
It is remarkable how different the Viennese sometimes play compared with other major orchestras of Europe and the United States. Sections do not always immediately fall into place; it’s not unusual to feel like part of the ensemble is pressing the tempo a hair, or that another is trying to pull back on the reins, before everything genially aligns.
Even with a treasured friend like Muti, who has been appearing with the Philharmonic for over 50 years, these players can be obstinate: During Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony on Sunday, Muti seemed at one point to be trying to egg on a speedier Scherzo than the orchestra was willing to deliver.
This isn’t the almost geometric precision heard in performances by the Berlin Philharmonic or the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra at Carnegie earlier this season. The Viennese don’t have those ensembles’ well-oiled chic; they have the lived-in elegance of old society, suits slightly rumpled and ascots a bit askew.
With its focus on music created before crystalline virtuosity became the definition of quality early in the 20th century, this orchestra can usually get away with a touch of untidiness. It’s in repertoire where laser-sharp attack has become the norm, like Stravinsky’s Divertimento, that things can seem a little unfocused. But even then, you can bask in a sturdy yet vital gracefulness, that hearty commitment and gemütlich glow.
This orchestra does loud and soft, fast and slow, but it never gives the sense of rushing or exaggerating. In Schubert’s Fourth Symphony on Friday and Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony on Sunday, pacing that felt at first overly placid gradually came to seem like the patient unfolding of broad structures.
Bruckner’s Seventh was serene but not sedate. Muti paced the first movement of Schubert’s Ninth with the calm steadiness of a hymn, but he didn’t stint the lilting whimsy and stormy overflowing of the Scherzo.
The “New World” Symphony is a chestnut, but these forces made it special. Many orchestras play the Largo with tenderness; few give it this degree of spiritual stature, with the English horn solo supported by such perfectly hushed chorales. A fierce Finale rose to the full-blooded saturation of an organ, with a terrifying scream in the trumpet that’s usually concealed in a fortissimo thicket — but here brought the symphony full circle after a similarly fearsome moment in the first movement.
When, after that superb performance, Muti brought out the overture to Johann Strauss II’s “Der Zigeunerbaron” as a zesty encore, he spoke from the stage, referring obliquely to the tumultuous political situation and offering a tribute to “love, brotherhood and peace.”
But he and the Philharmonic had provided a more moving vision of an ideal society earlier in the afternoon, during the great fugue in the finale of the “Jupiter” Symphony. As each section enters, its fragility feels protected by the others. The ensemble builds and builds, coalescing into the sound of many different voices speaking at once: none drowned, the whole robust and free.
