New York Philharmonic – Alan Gilbert, conductor; Leonidas Kavakos, violin. May 20, 2017.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat Y107, $83.25).

Program

Quintet for Piano and Strings in A major, D.667, Trout (1819) by Schubert (1797-1828).

Concerto in D major for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 77 (1878-79) by Brahms (1833-97).

Quintet musicians.  Shery Staples – violin, Cynthia Phelps – viola, Carter Brey – cello, Timothy Cobb – bass, Shai Wosner – piano.

Anne was away with a church group visiting Central Asia, and I just got back from a Boston trip Friday night.  This did allow me the opportunity to go see this concert, with a program of two pieces that are easy to like.

One of my favorite CDs is a recording of “The Trout” made by Emanuel Ax, Pamela Frank, Rebecca Young, Yo-Yo Ma, and Edgar Meyer.  Today’s ensemble consisted of string players from the Philharmonic, and the guest artist Wosner, and they put in a delightful performance.  Looking back at my reaction to the last time I heard this life (again with Philharmonic players), this is not necessarily a given.

The five musicians (Wosner second from left) after performing Schubert's Trout Quintet.

The Brahms violin concerto, while traditional in structure, makes great technical demands of the performer, and spends a lot of times in the highest notes possible on a violin;  all this Kavakos met with aplomb.  It was overall quite an enjoyable experience, and the orchestra was a great counterpart to the solo. The second movement’s main melody was carried by the oboe, and Wang did an excellent rendition of it.  I will never understand why it was rejected by Sarasate and Hellmesberger. The latter’s famous/notorious remark that the composition was “a concerto not for, but against the orchestra” was partly to blame for Brahms destroying his second violin concerto.

I was a bit disappointed at the subdued degree of romanticism in the performance.  This seems to be a general complaint I have of Kavakos’s playing.

All the Philharmonic musicians, except Staples, performed in the Brahms concerto.  To my surprise, Huang showed up as the concertmaster for the piece.

Kavakos performed Brahms's violin concerto.

The other thing of note was I used the barcode on my cell phone for admission into the concert hall.  New York Philharmonic is the innovator in this regard.

Nowadays a barcode on your cell phone will get you admitted into a New York Philharmonic Concert.

We drove up to Boston last night (today is May 25), and listened to the concerto performed by Heifetz, and was he playing it at a high speed.

The last few concerts were also marked by the huge amount of coughing by the audience between movements.  It was so embarrassing that someone decided to cover it up with applause.  Also, the 65^th Ave subway station was under repair, so I had to take the 5:07 pm train. I still got back to NJ in time to pick Anne up at Cheesequake, and we had dinner at the service plaza.