Israel Philharmonic presents "Little Tchaikovsky", cond. Lahav Shani

Every year, the Vienna Philharmonic presents a New Year's Day concert of light music based around Strauss-family waltzes and polkas.  These concerts are legendary and are broadcast worldwide, reaching a viewership around 50 million people annually.   

This was essentially an unadvertised concert that didn't appear on their published schedule, with tickets sold to under-35's at a discount price.  The presumed goal was to capture a younger audience and turn them into more regular concert goers, present a different side of classical music other than the stuffy reputation that it usually gets, and bring a special holiday-type atmosphere to the concert hall in a manner that's worked so well in Vienna and elsewhere.  The results were a slam dunk success.  

The Nutcracker ballet is already a holiday classic around the world, and Tchaikovsky ballets basically transcend classical music (even people who think they don't know about classical music will recognize many of the melodies), so the theme makes plenty of sense.  This was far and away the best performance I've seen from Lahav Shani.  He might fancy himself a late Romantic/20th century specialist, but he's incendiary with "lighter" music, not only as a conductor but as an educator/entertainer.  He spoke with the crowd between pieces, and invited audience members to watch part of the performance on stage to "fulfill a dream" (which turned into an unexpected deluge of upwards of 50 people).  He came across more cool and approachable than he could ever be while conducting Stravinsky or Bruckner.  In a cute moment during the extended pizzicato during the third movement of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, he simply took a break from conducting and grabbed seat in the audience.  It drew waves of laughter, but many conductors wouldn't be willing to take themselves down a peg and display such a sense of humour.

The programme was brilliantly sequenced, beginning with three selections from the Nutcracker ballet -- Waltz of the Flowers, Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies, and Dance of the Reed Flutes, each one delightful, each one recognizable to all.  This was followed by a selection from Tchaikovsky's String Quartet No. 1, arranged for string orchestra, and a performance of the first movement of the Violin Concerto featuring soloist Michael Shaham, a young violinist making his debut with the orchestra.  The start was a bit rocky, but he pulled it together by the end.  Finally, following the aforementioned rush to the stage, the full orchestra performed the third and fourth movements of the Fourth Symphony.  The third movement was a lively delight, and the final movement was sufficiently fiery to get across the overall mood of the piece.  One unannounced encore later, and the concert was over in a trim 75 minutes (no intermission) and not a single person left without a smile on their face.