Earlier tonight, I headed back to Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall for tonight's concert by The New York Philharmonic. On tonight's program - which will be repeated tomorrow morning at 11:00am(?!?!?!?) and Saturday evening - which was under the baton of Guest Conductor, David Robertson:
Ravel - Mother Goose Suite
Barber - Violin Concerto - with Gil Shaham as the soloist
Bartok - "The Wooden Prince"
Alas, I think I really got spoiled by Maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin and his Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra players two weeks ago, since I just kept wishing for "more" throughout tonight's concert. It wasn't a bad concert by any means, but for a concert programmed with "magical" pieces, there was some magic missing. Even Gil Shaham had an interesting night intonation-wise during the first movement of the Barber - and I could tell that he was feeling a bit unsteady before the second movement started. However, the moto perpetuo third movement rocked!
The NY Phil also used surtitles during the Bartok to describe what was happening in the "plot". It sort of worked, but then, inevitably, you read things like: "Then he had an idea," - then you heard the "idea" in the orchestra. -"Then he had another idea..." <ding> But the most memorable one was: "She was ashamed of her baldness." Alas, all those surtitles did was kind of distract me from the music-making as well as make me want to see the ballet.
*And I'm really wondering who is going to show up for tomorrow morning's 11:00am concert? Tonight's concert was only about 60% full, and a slew of people left at intermission. -If tomorrow's concert was meant as a school concert, well, with the snow... Hmm....
