Daniel Harding made an extremely auspicious debut with the Philadelphia
Orchestra this afternoon.

In short, wow!

Two sentences and I haven't even mentioned that he is 24 years old.
And he was leading a band that, in Rattle's words, "is not a young man's
orchestra." His advance notice was, if nothing else, an understatement.
I was unprepared for the amount of polish in his work, and for his sheer
command of the orchestra.

His podium presence, technique and command of the music were all
exemplary, especially given that he started the concert with a poised,
polished and beautiful rendition of Berg's Lyric Suite, continued with
the Grieg Concerto, and concluded with a Schumann 3rd in which he asked
the orchestra string section to restrain its vibrato.  Somehow they kept
the Philadelphia/Sawallisch sound quality while minimizing vibrato; the
effect in the 4th movement was eery, and in the last the strings simply
sang.  A cellist I spoke with while waiting for a train said that Harding
understands the pieces better than many of his elder colleagues.

His pedigree (Rattle and Abbado) is clear in some of his movements (the
grace of his shoulders, clarity of gesture and certain wrist movements from
Abbado; certain lunging thrusts and energy from Rattle), yet he's certainly
his own musician.  One is given much hope for the future of music from
experiences like this.

All told, a wonderful afternoon of music making, and one which I hope is
the beginning of a long and beautiful friendship.

Robin Mitchell-Boyask
Temple University
Philadelphia PA 19122