The Classical Music Guide Forums

Next season's programming has been announced, though it isn't easy to find out just what's being played in each concert - you have to click on each week to get a proper listing of the works:

http://nyphil.org/ConcertsTickets/Calen ... .F.F.T.F.F

The headline on the Philharmonic email I've just received is that for any subscription I buy before March 29, including Create Your Own Series, it's half-price. Also, "Delight is guaranteed," and that's not just empty talk; "If you change your mind after your first concert, we will cancel your subscription and refund the balance of your payment." Since I get my Philharmonic tickets even cheaper thanks to the senior citizen same day rush seats, I'm not going to bite, but those without that option who like the orchestra's programming will surely be tempted.

Ah yes, the programming. No concert operas this season. I see some concerts I'd gladly pay full price for, but not enough for a proper subscription. My short list of 9 programs, not a contemporary-free zone, which could get shorter as the spirit moves me but isn't likely to get longer:

10/30-11/5 Salonen cond. Ravel: Mere l'oye, Salonen: violin concerto (Josefowicz), Sibelius Symphony 5

11/21-23 Gilbert cond. Britten: Serenade (Appleby, Myers), Spring Symphony (Royal, Cook, Appleby)

1/2-7 Gilbert cond. Rouse: Rapture, Lindberg: Piano Concerto 2 (Bronfman), Tchaikovsky Symphony 5

1/16-18 Boreyko cond. Stravinsky: Chant du Rossignol, Mozart: bassoon concerto, Zemlinsky: Die Seejungfrau

3/12-15 Gilbert cond. Nielsen: Helios Overture, Symphonies #1 & 5

3/27-9 Dudamel cond. Vivier: Orion, Bruckner: Symphony #9

4/2-5 Heras-Casado cond. Britten: Peter Grimes sea interludes, Bartok: Concerto #3 (P. Serkin), Shostakovich: Symphony #10

5/30-1, 6/5-7 NY Philharmonic Biennial (programming TBA)

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John Francis

That was a lot of work, preparing your list while navigating through that site! You must have been noting them on a Word document as you went along. I was thinking of doing the same thing, but all of a sudden the site went weird on me (I couldn't navigate back to the weekly listing). Of course, in my case it's mostly fantasy, but I was noticing that there was not a lot of overlap between my choices and yours--maybe three of your choices would also be on my list.

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There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.
-- Johann Sebastian Bach

It took some searching to find the list I worked from, but once I had it, writing up my choices here was a simple matter of flipping between Firefox tabs.

The Philharmonic is making a big deal of a Beethoven piano concerto cycle at the end of the season with Bronfman and Gilbert, but otherwise I think the programming will be more interesting next season than this one. Fortunately it's diverse enough to appeal to a wide range of tastes, and a good thing that our personal choices can be so different. Are you going to post yours here? Let me guess - you're not a fan of Salonen's or Magnus Lindberg's music.

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John Francis

There are so many U.S. orchestras todaywhich would not dare to program this kind of repertoire , and yet the
damn fool New York and other critics will still keep on accusing the orchestra of being a "stodgy and hidebound institution " which does nothing but play the same old warhorses after this release . When will they ever learn ? Are they just stupid, or are they lying through their teeth ?

When the orchestra's biggest promotion for 2013-4 is yet another cycle of the Beethoven piano concertos, I'd say Tommasini et al. have a point. The season is very long and the orchestra does play a certain amount of new and almost-new music, but not nearly as much as the La-La Land Philharmonic under its two most recent music directors. You don't have to be some guy to be unimpressed.

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John Francis

I wonder what you guys think of Alan Gilbert. The NY Phil came to Ann Arbor last week and I saw them perform the "Pathetique" Symphony. Technically very good, but musically plain. Gilbert showed a serious lack of creativity.

I think he is a worthy conductor of Magnus Lindburg.

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There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.
-- Johann Sebastian Bach

Mostly I go to Philharmonic concerts with unusual and interesting repertoire, so I haven't heard Alan Gilbert conduct works like the Pathetique. The performances I have heard were musical and effective, but few would set the world on fire. A high point was Beethoven's Missa Solemnis last season. Some of his programming has been adventurous, such as the Nielsen cycle and the concert performances of "Le Grand Macabre" and "Cunning Little Vixen," which he conducted well, though after the first two seasons the repertoire has gotten more conservative - possibly due to the influence of the orchestra's fundraising and marketing departments, I don't know.

Last October Gilbert's contract, which would have expired this spring, was extended for four years (through the 2016-17 season). That's longer than the tenures of Pierre Boulez and Lorin Maazel. What will happen then? After the extension was signed, Simon Rattle announced that he will leave his post with the Berlin Philharmonic at the end of the 2017-18 season, and Valery Gergiev will leave the London Symphony at the end of 2014-15. If either or both are available in 2017, the Philharmonic's board may try to sign a more prestigious conductor, as they have in the past. Or not.

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John Francis

Perhaps Gilbert is a decent musician, but after seeing some fantastic recent performances by Tilson Thomas, Barenboim, Gergiev and Levine, the contrast between these and Gilbert made him look like an amateur. I understand that Gilbert is still young and he is probably very good among his cohort (i.e. forty-somethings), but a world-class orchestra like the NY Phil deserves a world-class conductor IMO.

"Amateur" is the wrong word. Gilbert is a thoroughly skilled professional who knows his metier. His control of the orchestra and singers in the concert performance of Ligeti's extremely complex and challenging opera "Le Grand Macabre" was masterly. You want amateurism, check out Gilbert Kaplan, whose incompetence in basic conducting skills is covered up by orchestras that play better than he conducts. Read this by a New York Philharmonic musician:


http://davidfinlayson.typepad.com/fin_notes/2008/12/some-words-about-gilbert-kaplan.html

As for the kind of conductor you think the New York Philharmonic deserves, it's the trend nowadays to go with younger and less famous talents; cf. also Yannick Nezet-Seguin in Philadelphia and Esa Pekka Salonen and Gustavo Dudamel in Los Angeles. For that matter, Leonard Bernstein took over the Philharmonic at 39, Gilbert at 42. In contrast, the appointment of the more experienced (and glamourous) Zubin Mehta in 1978 led to the orchestra's decline during his long tenure, both in the quality of its playing and in its standing, as it lost its recording contract and its national broadcasts. By their fruits shall ye know them.

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John Francis

I just looked up Kaplan in Wikipedia. He has recorded the Mahler 2nd (apparently the only work he conducts) with the presumably for-hire LSO, but also with--the Vienna Philharmonic????????????!!!!!!!

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There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.
-- Johann Sebastian Bach

Like I said several posts above, Alan Gilbert was "technically very good". But technique doesn't impress me as much as musicality. The ultimate test of musicianship is to see if the conductor/performer can make a hackneyed piece sound interesting, e.g. the "Pathetique" Symphony. You haven't seen him conduct hackneyed pieces, but I have. He gave two concerts in Ann Arbor last week and I saw only the second one. My friend saw the first one where they performed the Brahms 1st, and said the exact same thing: good technique, but not musically interesting.

When I was active on these forums about a decade ago, the pianist Hamelin was often the subject of this kind of discussion (perhaps he still is but I wouldn't know). Yes, he might be the most technically perfect pianist ever, but whenever he played conventional pieces by Beethoven, Mozart, Schumann etc., he sounded boring due to insufficient creativity or inspiration. So, I felt that while he was the ultimate technician, he was a mediocre musician. Hamelin fans would be pissed, arguing that he did play with feelings, and then Hamelin critics would counter that he didn't show *enough* feelings or insights. He might be better now but again, I wouldn't know.

Bernstein was already a fascinating musician in his 40s. Musically, Gilbert is not there yet, though he clearly shows excellent technical control. BTW, Mehta just likes to have fun. He can be very good at times, but don't expect consistent quality from him.



I have Kaplan's DG recording of the Mahler 2nd and it's actually pretty good, probably thanks to extensive editing.

Am I correct in assuming that you are the Kwoon that had that huge CD collection?
If so, it's nice to see you back after so many years of absence.

Re Hamelin, I feel very strongly that earlier negatives about his lack of musicianship have long disappeared. His versatility is remarkable, there's not a composer he doesn't perform admirably and he is, in my opinion, one of the finest pianists in the world today.

I was objecting to your saying that he seemed like an amateur. Many, many highly professional musicians aren't the most stimulating interpreters - my list would include Leonard Slatkin - but that has nothing to do with amateurism, actual or seeming.

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John Francis

Agreed.

As for Kaplan's Mahler, his first recording with the London Symphony was merely a musical copy of earlier recordings that I liked (Mehta, Abbado), so I rated it OK. Kaplan's second reading with Vienna was just junk: laughable, IMHO. He introduced odd tempi and shapes to the music: a total failure.

Alan Gilbert is hardly an amateur, and his reading of Mahler II that was telecast on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 was actually quite good. He's more to my taste than Mehta or Maazel, but he's yet to live up to Bernstein's legacy, no fire in the belly. He's at least good at what he does, but, yes, sometimes I want more than that.

BTW: Welcome, Kwoon!

Yep, I am that notorious former CD collector, and I remember you too! It's good to see quite a few familiar names here, and to learn that Hamelin has matured further as a musician. I stopped buying CDs in mid 2009 and so I haven't heard any of his recent recordings.

I decided to stop by this forum because of Cliburn's death -- I just wanted to see whether there were discussions about this great pianist. Then the title of this thread caught my eye and I wanted to participate. But I think I will disappear from the forum again right after this post. Since about 8 years ago, I have been much more active on an entirely different forum, the Thinkpads.com forum where my user name is pianowizard. These days, I collect computers and LCD monitors!



Anyone who does music for a living is a professional musician, and of course I didn't mean that Gilbert isn't one. Thanks for catching my misuse of the term "amateur". What I wanted to say was that in terms of musicality, Gilbert is no match for the above-listed giants. Anyway, I have seen Slatkin live and enjoyed his musical interpretation much more than Gilbert's.



Thanks, but there is really no need to welcome me because I have been involved in this and earlier forums since the 1990s. First, it was Classical Insites, and when that were abolished, most of us moved over to something like SiteTronics (not sure if that's the name), and then briefly to amazon's board, and finally here. Cliftwood, were you on Classical Insites too?

I have my sights set on the first full week in May '14--either on the 5th, with Joe Miller leading Christopher Rouse's Requiem (at Carnegie), or on the 10th, with Haitink leading the "Eroica," back at Avery Fischer. And several other Carnegie stops inbetween. Dare I to hint at any possibility of a meetup?

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If I could tell my mom and dad
That the things we never had
Never mattered we were always ok
Getting ready for Christmas day
--Paul Simon

Sure, why not? I'll certainly be around and there are a few other CMG types in NYC too.

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John Francis

Hmmm-any donizetti that week-that could draw me in from the boondocks !

Len

Well, as far as melodious opera is concerned, there's Howard Hanson's Merry Mount, in a complete concert performance, by the Rochester Philharmonic at Carnegie on May 7!

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If I could tell my mom and dad
That the things we never had
Never mattered we were always ok
Getting ready for Christmas day
--Paul Simon

"Merry Mount" - now you're talking! I haven't yet looked at Carnegie Hall's coming attractions for 2013-14 and would have missed this one if you hadn't mentioned it. Thanks!

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John Francis

Gee if only the Met were doing a full opera production of that I'd definitely be there---instead they have to take Rigoletto and trash it. Regards, Len

The Met did do a full production of "Merry Mount," but I couldn't make it, as it was in 1934. Nine performances in one season and then they dropped it. I've heard the opera on records and now that Wallingford has let us know of next season's Carnegie Hall performance, I think I'll go.

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John Francis

Maybe we could do a forum dinner before the Carnegie Hall event--then we could go our separate ways--gee even if it was semi-staged! Regards, Len [fleeing]

That would be a good thing. Let's see if we remember a year from now.

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John Francis

I've only heard Gilbert conduct on several occaisions , the opening night PBS telecasts of the New York Phil. and the Met's production of John Adams' Doctor Atomic , and my impressions have been favorable . And the PBS telecast of Mahler's Resurrection symphony to mark the 10th anniversary of 9/11 , which was a gripping and memorable experience .
I will have to hear him in a wider variety of repertoire before I form a definite opinion about his conducting, but I see no evidence that the New York Philharmonic made a poor choice in appointing him music director .
And what's not to like about his interesting programming and commitment to contemporary music ?

That'd be the way to go....I'm economizing as much as I can on this trip, the dinner notwithstanding.....with my taking in five concerts in all, I'm definitely going for the cheapest seats.

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If I could tell my mom and dad
That the things we never had
Never mattered we were always ok
Getting ready for Christmas day
--Paul Simon

Great let's remember this! Len

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Karl Henning, PhD
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston, Massachusetts
http://members.tripod.com/~Karl_P_Henning/
http://henningmusick.blogspot.com/
Published by Lux Nova Press
http://www.luxnova.com/

John, I've long considered Mehta to be the most underrated ocnductor fo our time, the most unjustly maligned by far.
I heard the New York Philharmonic play superbly under him on many occaisions .
The critics in New York and elsewhere certainly had the right to dislike his interpretations, but they treated him with vicious and scurrilous scorn, particularly the late Alan Rich, who really had it in for him, even after he left the NY Phil, and said all manner of grossly unfair and blatantly untrue things about him, and even made ad hominem attacks on him .
Before coming to New York, Mehta built the Los Angeles Phil. into a world class orchestra, as far as I am concerned, the equal of any of the so-called "big five" orchestras . He has always been a staunch champion of challenging contemporary music, yet Rich lied through his teeth and accused him of a failure to champion new music, while hypocritically heaping praise on the late Carlo maria Giulini in L.A. , despite his total failure to do anything for new music .
Peter G. Davis treated him th esame way when he came to replace Rich at New York magazine . Their reviews of Mehta always left me with a bad taste in my mouth .

Another thing that Mehta cannot be blamed for is the hard, harsh sound of the Philharmonic during his era. The acoustics of the Avery Fisher stage were simply horrendous: all the sound projected out, and the musicians on the stage could not hear each other. No amount of rehearsal or conductor's ear can make up for that fact. It's true that I did not like the sound of the orchestra in those years, and Mehta's plain-vanilla conducting didn't help much, but the orchestra sounds so much better now with the new scallops (whatever they are) letting the players hear each other and put more finesse in their sound.

During the later years of Zubin Mehta's long tenure, the New York Philharmonic's playing was often blatant and coarse when he was on the podium and I was in the audience. Principal horn Philip Myers was the King of Clams, perhaps partly because the orchestra was in the habit of playing loud. You can't blame that on the critics, and you can't blame the critics for objecting to it. With his very first concert as music director, Kurt Masur already went a long way toward restoring musicality to the orchestra's playing, a pretty good indication that it wasn't the players but their leader who was responsible for the former coarseness.

What Mehta achieved with other orchestras at other times is neither here nor there. I've heard good performances from the Vienna Philharmonic under his direction, because whoever conducts them, they remain themselves. As for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, I never heard them in person during the Mehta years, which ended in 1978, and while I own and enjoy a number of their recordings, the true measure of an orchestra's actual playing is not to be taken from their electronically balanced and edited studio recordings.

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John Francis

Karl will do! Len

JohnF:

I'm not saying that the harsh sound wasn't there: I'm agreeing that it was. In point of fact, there was great personal tension between Mehta and the orchestra, according to what I know, each blaming the other for falling attendance and Mehta's losing his recording contract with Columbia, but in order for the orchestra to hear themselves properly, they had to play loudly due to the impossible acoustics on stage. When Masur came in, he immediately ordered a remodeling of the stage and had those barrels installed that we see there today (among other changes), thus enabling the orchestra to have a more subtle sound pallette.

During Mehta's tenure, I once saw them totally lose their way in the Nutcracker because they couldn't hear each other, and the conductor (Rozhdestvensky) just shrugged and moved on. As for Philip Myers, one can hardly blame Mehta for that, since union rules kept him in place.

Just for the record, I am not a fan of Mehta's middle and late years, but his Tosca recording with Leontyne Price is so skillful, it takes my breath away, and his Alpine Symphony with LA is very fine, as is his Mahler II with Vienna. He has now developed a great deal of fussiness and excess rubato in his conducting style that do not appeal to me.

No doubt the hall acoustics have had their effect on the playing. But Kurt Masur's beneficial effect on the orchestra's playing was very audible in his first concert as music director, in September 1991, and the changes you describe were not installed until after the end of his first season, in the summer of 1992. Planning for them began in December 1991, three months into Masur's tenure and presumably at his instigation, since nothing of the kind had been done or discussed before he took over.

How did Masur get better results than Mehta in the unchanged hall? I remember that he changed the orchestra's layout, with the double basses on risers along the rear wall. More importantly perhaps, Masur had the orchestra playing less loudly in ff than they had been doing under Mehta, even in the Bruckner 7th on Masur's first program; playing "within themselves" may have been key to getting the coarseness out of their sound.

It may also account for the improvement in Philip Myers's playing in the Bruckner and in general during the Masur years, helped by a little positive psychology from Masur, who praised him to the skies. A couple of seasons ago, Alan Gilbert took the chance of programming Haydn's Hornsignal Symphony, and the clammy old days were here again.

Despite Masur's frequent public praise of the orchestra, I understand that he was a hard man in rehearsals and not slow to scold. The players complained about this when he left, and their leaping at the chance to get Lorin Maazel is said to have been influenced by his rehearsals of two series of concerts in which he was non-confrontational and efficient, letting the players go early. But I can't help thinking that Masur's being demanding was more effective than Mehta's reportedly more easy-going ways.

Whatever, where the orchestra's sound and discipline are concerned, the buck stops with the conductor.

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John Francis

I've heard appallingly coarse playing from the NY Phil. on numerous Columbia recordings before Mehta , under Bernstein and Mitropoulos for example, especially the trumpets and horns, which produced a rough , blaring and sputtery sound, with excessively hard tonguing by the horns .
If you compare this to the brass of the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics, it's like comparing silk with brillo .
The LA Philharmonic brass were just as good under Mehta as Vienna and Berlin . In fact, when Masur came to L.A. to conduct the Philharmonic not long before Mehta moved to New York, he described it as a "perfect orchestra".
Also, many of Toscanini's N.B.C. symphony recordings are ruined for me by the crude, vibrato-ridden blare of its trumpets.,
particularly in his Wagner recordings, where you definitely need the kind of brass sound of Vienna or Berlin .

The Philharmonic's players were at their worst under Dimitri Mitropoulos, showing open contempt for him in rehearsals and disregarding what he wanted. Mitropoulos was an inspirational conductor, and other orchestras played well for him, but not in New York. He just wasn't tough enough to put the Philharmonic's players in their place. What a pity.

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John Francis