New York Philharmonic. Jaap van Zweden, conductor; Rudolf Buchbinder, piano. January 5, 2023.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat U5, $80).

Van Zweden and Buchbinder at the conclusion of the Beethoven Concerto.

Program

Prelude to Act I of the Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg (1862-67) by Wagner (1813-83).

Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58 (1806) by Beethoven (1770-1827).

Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98 (1884-85) by Brahms (1833-97).

The first thing I noticed about the program is it consists of well-known, traditional pieces, with nothing from a contemporary composer.  A left-brain program, as I call it.  Worked for me, and - from the NY Times reviewer's headline - worked for some critics as well.

Beethoven's piano concerto was the one that was of most interest.  I saw the van Zweden/Buchbinder combination in Hong Kong back in September, 2023.  It was Beethoven's Emperor Concerto, and I had a lot of good things to say about it.  While the 4th may be less "substantial," it was still a formidable piece of music.  The same remarks I made about the Hong Kong performance hold true today also: effortless, great cooperation.  Of course one has to take the "whole package" and not the individual components, but I do wonder if the performance(s) could be more agitated, and how that would come across - Nobuyuki Tsujii performing with Orpheus Chamber comes to mind.

If the conclusion is that the HK Phil performance was as good as today's, that would not be wrong in my book.

The Program Notes mentions some musicologists feel Beethoven might have had Orpheus in mind when he wrote this concerto.  Fascinating, but I couldn't tell.

Brahms' fourth starts with these well-known themes that he worked over multiple times, expanding, inverting, transposing (and other terms).  As with my other reviews of the piece, the fourth movement still sounded unfamiliar, except for a couple of melodies.  I shall find the time to listen to it a few times.  The Program Notes says it's 32 variations on a theme by Bach.

The prelude of Wagner was written between his Ring operas.  The harp was used in this work, but for only a short episode - I didn't see it played at all.  The harpist shows up for all these concerts, and plays for (say) a minute.  Of course she is then free to leave.

In any case, I don't know what to make of overtures.  Some are enjoyable, some not so much.  Today's was somewhere in between.

The harp was used in the Prelude by Wagner.

At the conclusion of the concert.  The harp was removed during intermission, it still stuck around during the Beethoven concerto (although not used).

I walked up from the Penn Station to Lincoln Center.  Anne took the subway.  Since the 1 line had disruptive service, she had to get off at the Columbus Station.  To return we had to walk to that station, and we got on a downtown train with a stop at Greely Square (instead of 8th/33rd), so we didn't make the 4:27 pm train.  The next train was 5:01, so we didn't have to wait long.