NY Philharmonic - Gilbert/Andsnes - Mozart-Webern-Schumann

This week's subscription program at the NY Philharmonic begins each half of the concert with a short work by Anton von Webern.  The first half closes with Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major, K. 488, and the concert closes with Schumann's Symphony No. 2 in C Major, Op. 61.  Music Director Alan Gilbert was on the podium, and Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes was soloist for the Mozart.

The two Webern pieces were selected to provide real contrast.  Im Sommerwind, which opened the program, is an early work, calling for a big romantic orchestra, lusciously deployed.  Of course it predates his study with Arnold Schoenberg and decision to forsake romanticism and become a 12-tone composer.  This is probably the most audience-friendly piece that Webern ever wrote, and it was served up in all its splendor this evening.

Thence to the Mozart, which received an ideal performance.  Andsnes's Mozart is trim, fleet, well-pointed, slightly ornamented in the slow movement, ideally coordinated with the orchestra, just dreamy enough for the Adagio second movement, and full of humor in the finale.  I grew up with the recording of this concerto by Robert Casadesus and George Szell; that urbane performance is imprinted in my soul, and next to it Andsnes is more flashily modern, but both work just fine for me, and I was very happy to hear this performance tonight.  I also particularly appreciated how the pianist took Mozart's cadenza for the first movement and definitely made it his own, with little rhythmic distentions and turns of phrase that I had not heard before.

After intermission, Gilbert gave a brief talk about Webern's 10-minute symphony, with assistance from a member of the orchestra's administration and a member of the cello section (speaking, not playing).  The major burden of the remarks was that this is not listener-friendly music, and it's very difficult for the orchestra to play, but Webern was a great musical thinker so there must be something worth hearing in it.  Then they played it.  Apart from a few moments in the Variations second movement, I had trouble hearing any kind of sustained musical line.  I haven't had my "breakthrough" with 12-tone Webern yet.  There are works by Schoenberg that I can enjoy now, and I love the Berg Violin Concerto and the operas, but Webern is still a bit of a closed book for me.  That said, the performance seemed fine as far as I could tell, and the audience responded enthusiastically -- although it's hard to say whether out of musical appreciation or out of artist appreciation.

Then to the Schumann.  Gilbert knows how to animate this thickly orchestrated music, and brought it off triumphantly to conclude a memorable concert.  The Philharmonic continues to play brilliantly for him, and it seems as we hit the midpoint of the season that this is turning out to be a good match.

Somebody should clue in whoever prepares the written program about how to estimate the length of concerts.  On page 23 of the program book, it says "the concert will last approximately one and three-quarters hours, which includes one intermission."  Well, the concert was called for 7:30, and we got out at 9:45.  Evidently, whoever is compiling this information is not clued in to Gilbert's penchant for speechifying about unusual works on the program, and also doesn't understand how intermissions work at the Philharmonic - they always last longer than scheduled.   So a little adjustment needs to be made if they are going to print such predictions about concert length in the program.