New York Philharmonic – Alan Gilbert, conductor; Stephen Hough, piano. January 12, 2017.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat X110, $82.50).

Program

Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, Emperor (18 by Beethoven (1770-1827).

Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90 (1882-83) by Brahms (1833-97).

Sometimes you feel here is this herd effect in the music world where many artists seem to concentrate on the same few solo pieces.  The piece that seems to be in vogue recently seems to be Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto.  A rough scan of this blog returns the event once or twice a year.  That is not necessarily a complaint: I mentioned before that I heard Beethoven’s violin concerto nearly every day one summer and didn’t tire of it.

The last time I heard this was in Sydney, performed by Garrick Ohlsson, conducted by Ashkenazy.  Ohlsson is a big man, Hough is quite small in comparison.  Yet the thing that came across most prominently was both of them dispatched the piece with a serious demeanor, not at all given to flamboyance.  This evening Hough delivered a technically flawless performance, and mostly let the music speak for itself through the way it was structured.  He did vary the tempo at selected places, to mixed effect.

Stephen Hough at curtain call, with Alan Gilbert looking on from the podium.

I noticed that the Concertmaster and the Principal bass were not present for the concerto, perhaps they are observing the usual “tradition” of excusing themselves when a soloist is present?

Despite my having heard it several times before (mostly recently in January, 2015, by the Budapest Festival Orchestra conducted by Ivan Fischer), Brahms’s third symphony continued to sound unfamiliar to me.  To prepare for the evening, I watched the first movement on YouTube while going through an abridged score.  This helped me to recognize the F-A flat-F motto, denoting the words “free but happy.”  The other finding was a section of the movement is repeated. \ The recording was made by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Georg Solti.  One obvious difference was the level of precision in the YouTube video was just so much better than what I heard tonight.  Even with a simplified score, one could see the challenge the music would present to an orchestra, with its runs and syncopated passages. Again the third movement sounded very familiar.

Gilbert conducted with great energy, and with good effect – despite my misgivings.  It occurred to me this would be a more satisfying opening concert for the year than the one we heard last week.  Gilbert also took the occasion to pay tribute to Carl Schiebler, the recently deceased personnel manager or the orchestra.

The line in the New York Times review, “Masterworks you hear all the time,” is an apt description of the program.  The reviewer had only one paragraph devoted to the performance, including this one liner for the symphony: “Mr. Gilbert drew from them a spirited, richly textured account of Brahms’s Third Symphony.”  In contrast, the review in New York Classical Review contains a detailed critique of the evening, and tries to attribute Gilbert’s “micro-conducting” to the visiting musicians in the orchestra.  He thought the horn was too loud, and I thought it sounded uncharacteristically unsteady the entire evening, and was surprised that it was the principal that played.

We drove up and parked on Amsterdam Ave, dinner was at East Szechuan.  The drive back was also straightforward.