The Sunday New York Times Newspaper Article
Music: An American Orchestra by John Rockwell
It's an unlikely story: an unknown young Sri Lankan conductor organizes his own orchestra, survives into his second season of Carnegie Hall concerts and wins enthusiastic applause and reviews. But that is what has happened to Rohan Joseph, a former pianist and computer programmer who now finds himself in charge of the American Philharmonic Orchestra. That ensemble completed the highly successful second concert of its second season Thursday night. It was so successful, in fact, that the American Symphony Orchestra had better look to its laurels.
According to the program, Mr. Joseph's orchestra numbers 114 musicians and has an average age of 28. The players looked younger, but sounded first rate; string tone was sweet and rich, winds and brass were secure, and overall ensemble was precise.
But this orchestra, down to its technical strengths and weaknesses, takes its cues from its founder and conductor. Mr. Joseph says he came to conducting through a love of Bruckner, and he seems in all things a Brucknerian. That meant a predilection for weighty lyricism and grave drama at the expense of tension and lightness. Yet Mr. Joseph's music-making is not so much distorted as simply colored by his interpretive personality. By and large, passages calling for tautness work well enough on his terms.
The least successful playing came in Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 in A (K. 488). Mr. Joseph used far too large an orchestra, and the execution and phrasing were sometimes slack. But his grandiosity suited his soloist, Lill Kraus, who at her worst punched out the music stiffly, but who does have a certain vigorous grandeur. And both pianist and orchestra did find a lilting groove in the final movement.
Mr. Joseph was more in his element in Dvorak's Symphony No. 8 in G (Op. 88) and in his own 39 minute suite from Prokofiev's "Romeo and Juliette." The Dvorak was rich, lyrical and deeply affecting, especially the Brucknerian slow movement. The Prokofiev was totally symphonic, not balletic, but attained a real power in the dramatic parts and a warm songfulness in between.
There was one final Brucknerian touch. The concert lasted fully three hours, because there was a clumsily arranged "preconcert" addendum - often talking loudly, throughout its duration. This consisted of Dittersdorf's Double Bass Concerto in E, softly but sympathetically played by the orchestra's principal, John Feeney, and a short but sturdy snippet of Gabrieli antiphonal brass music.