New York Philharmonic Go "On the Town" & More at Lincoln Center

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Wednesday, 04 February 2026 14:46

Written by Jack Angstreich

Conductor Gustavo Gimeno & soloist Hélène Grimaud. Photo by Brandon Patoc

At Lincoln Center’s wonderful David Geffen Hall, on the evening of Thursday, December 4th, 2025, I had the privilege to attend a fine concert presented by the New York Philharmonic under the admirable direction of Gustavo Gimeno, in his debut performances with this ensemble. 

The event started promisingly with a pleasurable account of Leonard Bernstein’s delightful, inventively scored Three Dance Episodes from On the Town, his 1944 musical created in collaboration with choreographer Jerome Robbins and librettists Betty Comden and Adolph Green. The composer’s own comment on this suite is as follows: 

The story of On the Town is concerned with three sailors on 24-hour leave in New York, and their adventures with the monstrous city which its inhabitants take so for granted. 

Dance of the Great Lover: Gabey, the romantic sailor in search of the glamorous Miss Turnstiles, falls asleep on the subway and dreams of his prowess in sweeping Miss Turnstiles off her feet. 

Pas de deux: Gabey watches a scene, both tender and sinister, in which a sensitive high school girl in Central Park is lured and then cast off by a worldly sailor. 

Times Square Ballet: A more panoramic sequence in which all the sailors in New York congregate in Times Square for their night of fun. There is communal dancing, a scene in a souvenir arcade, a scene in the Roseland Dance Palace. Cuts have been made in this music of those sections relating directly to the plot action.

An impressive soloist, Hélène Grimaud, then entered the stage to provide an accomplished rendition of George Gershwin’s enjoyable Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra, from 1925. About it, the composer later said:

Many persons had thought that the Rhapsody was only a happy accident. Well, I went out, for one thing, to show them that there was plenty more where that had come from. I made up my mind to do a piece of absolute music. The Rhapsody, as its title implies, was a blues impression. The concerto would be unrelated to any program. And that is exactly how I wrote it.

Before the work’s premiere, Gershwin offered this description of it in the New York Herald Tribune:

The first movement employs the Charleston rhythm. It is quick and pulsating, representing the young enthusiastic spirit of American life. It begins with a rhythmic motif given out by the kettledrums, supported by other percussion instruments, and with a Charleston motif introduced by … horns, clarinets and violas. The principal theme is announced by the bassoon. Later, a second theme is introduced by the piano. 

The second movement has a poetic nocturnal atmosphere which has come to be referred to as the American blues, but in a purer form than that in which they are usually treated. 

The final movement reverts to the style of the first. It is an orgy of rhythms, starting violently and keeping to the same pace throughout. 

The initial Allegro begins excitingly; with the entry of the piano, the music turns inward if still virtuosic but interrupted periodically by showier measures replete with popular dance rhythms—it ends emphatically. The ensuing slow movement is meditative and lyrical at first and on the whole but then more celebratory, if quietly so; it concludes gently. The finale, marked Allegro agitato, is dynamic and propulsive and ends thrillingly. 

The second half of the evening was even stronger: a satisfying realization of Antonín Dvořak’s marvelous Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95, From the New World, completed in 1893. The first movement’s Adagio introduction is somewhat suspenseful; its Allegro molto main body is stirring and melodious, finishing forcefully. The succeeding, song-like Largo has a quasi-pastoral ethos, although a faster middle section has greater urgency; it ends very softly if joyfully. The third movement, marked Molto vivace, is more turbulent, with driving rhythms and contrasting sections that are more leisurely in pace and evocative of the American West; it closes abruptly. The Allegro con fuoco finale is exhilarating and exultant—there are Wagnerian passages and some more subdued moments—and it builds to a triumphant conclusion.

The artists deservedly received a standing ovation.

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Present "Frozen Dreams"

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Tuesday, 03 February 2026 14:49

Written by Jack Angstreich

Photo by Chris Lee.

At the wonderful Stern Auditorium, on the night of Wednesday, December 3rd, 2025, I had the privilege to attend a sterling concert presented by Carnegie Hall and performed by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra led by the eminent Manfred Honeck.

The event started promisingly with an admirable account of Lena Auerbach’s compelling, somewhat mysterious Frozen Dreams, commissionedby this ensemble and heard here in its New York premiere. Below is the composer’s own comment on the work:

Music exists in a paradox: It is both frozen and ephemeral, tangible and elusive. The act of composition is an attempt to capture something that is already dissolving. My orchestral work Frozen Dreams emerges from this paradox, reimagining the sound world of my earlier Frozen Dreams for string quartet (2020) and expanding it into an orchestral landscape that explores the fragility of perception and the shifting nature of reality itself. As I returned to this material, I found myself drawn to the idea that an event becomes fully real only when it is perceived—an idea that resonates, in a poetic sense, with aspects of quantum realities. Music unfolds as a wide field of potentialities, taking on a unique shape for each listening ear.

Orchestration is, in many ways, an exploration of this uncertainty. What happens when sound, once confined to the four voices of a string quartet, is stretched across the vast sonic universe of an orchestra? Does it retain its essence, or does it become something else entirely? Here, we confront the deeply personal and subjective experience of perception. No two listeners will hear Frozen Dreams in the same way, just as no two dreams are identical. A chord might sound luminous to one listener, foreboding to another. A silence might be filled with anticipation, or with loss. The orchestra, with its myriad colors and shifting densities, becomes a dreamscape in which meaning is perpetually in flux.

We often think of memories as something fixed, securely behind us, but they are as fluid as the dreams that shape them. In a poetic sense, we are always “remembering the future,” allowing our subconscious to blend past and future into the present. In Frozen Dreams, musical ideas resurface like echoes of something once known, or yet to be—blurring the boundaries of time. A theme emerges, vanishes, then returns changed—as if recalled from a dream, yet belonging to a moment still waiting to unfold.

Though the title Frozen Dreams suggests stasis, this work is, at its core, about movement—about the delicate tension between what is remembered and what is forgotten, between what is possible and what is inevitable. It is a meditation on the way time is layered in our minds: past, present, and future coexisting in an endless spiral. Perhaps, in the end, this music does not seek to answer the questions it poses. Instead, it invites the listener to dwell within them—to step into the dream and, for a fleeting moment, let the boundaries of time and self dissolve.

The composer was present to receive the audience’s acclaim.

A remarkable pianist, Seong-Jin Cho, then entered the stage for a dazzling account of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s fabulous Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43, from 1934. The composer wrote to the renowned choreographer Mikhail Fokine about the scenario for a 1937 ballet based on the piece:

Why not resurrect the legend about Paganini, who, for the perfection of his art and for a woman, sold his soul to an evil spirit? All the variations which have the theme of Dies Irae [nos. 7, 10, and 24] represent the evil spirit. The variations from No. 11 to No. 18 are love episodes. Paganini himself appears in the “theme” (his first appearance) and again, for the last time, in variation No. 23. The evil spirit appears for the first time in variation No. 7. Variations nos. 8, 9, and 10 are the development of the evil spirit. Variation No. 11 is the turning point into the domain of love. Variation No. 12—the Menuet—portrays the first appearance of the woman. Variation No. 13 is the first conversation between the woman and Paganini. Variation No. 19—Paganini’s triumph.

Enthusiastic applause elicited a terrific encore from the soloist: Frédéric Chopin’s astonishingly beautiful Waltz in C-sharp Minor, Op. 64, No. 2.

However, the second half of the evening was even more impressive: an awesome rendition of Dmitri Shostakovich’s extraordinary Symphony No. 5 in D Minor, Op. 47, from 1937. In an official publication three months after the premiere of the work, the composer wrote: 

The theme of my Symphony is the stabilization of the personality. In the center of this composition—conceived lyrically from beginning to end—I saw a man with all his experiences. The Finale resolves the tragically tense impulses of the earlier movements into optimism and joy of living.

In the much later Testimony, Shostakovich offered a contrasting interpretation:

I think it is clear to everyone what happens in the [finale of the] Fifth Symphony. The rejoicing is forced, created under threat, as in Boris Godunov. It’s as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, ‘Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing,’ and you rise, shaky, and go marching off muttering, ‘Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing.’ What kind of apotheosis is that? You have to be a complete oaf not to hear that … People who came to the premiere of the Fifth in the best of moods wept.

The initial, Moderato movement begins dramatically, ushering in a mood of great solemnity; in the ensuing development section, a sinister march is the vehicle for music of great intensity that builds to a powerful climax before subsiding for a recapitulation of the more irenic, second theme encountered in the movement’s first part—the movement closes with a hushed coda. The succeeding scherzo, marked Allegretto, is characteristically playful and often stirring; a contrasting Trio is sometimes dance-like in its rhythms—the movement ends abruptly and emphatically. The Largo it precedes is plaintive, lugubrious but also passionate if with meditative moments sometimes of extreme quiet; it concludes very softly. (According to the notes on the program by Dr. Richard E. Rodda, the legendary conductor Serge Koussevitzky thought it “to be the greatest symphonic slow movement since Beethoven.”) The finale—its tempo is Allegro non troppo—is propulsive and exciting for much of its length but with a more fraught, subdued and largely pessimistic middle section; it closes stunningly and magnificently.

The artists deservedly received a standing ovation.

New York Philharmonic Carve Out "Stonework" & More

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Monday, 02 February 2026 18:17

Written by Jack Angstreich

Dima Slobodeniouk directs the New York Philharmonic. Photo by Brandon Patoc

At Lincoln Center’s wonderful David Geffen Hall, on the night of Saturday, November 22nd, 2025 I had the privilege to attend a superb concert presented by the New York Philharmonic under the sterling direction of Dima Slobodeniouk.

The event started very promisingly with one of the New York premiere performances of Sebastian Fagerlund’s remarkable, impressively orchestrated Stonework, which was completed in 2015 and splendidly realized here. The composer has said that “Working with the orchestra is a very natural medium,” that “Technique is just as important as finding your own voice,” and that “the grand Finnish archipelago and sea with its vast and open views, as well as the islands with their raw, primary rock, continue to provide me with endless inspiration.” He also said, “I have always been interested in ritualistic and primeval things, and in impulses from other genres of music.” 

In useful comments on the program by Matthew Woodard, a Prospect Research Associate at the New York Philharmonic who has been an annotator for the Hudson Valley Chamber Music Circle, he explains that “Stonework is at once a standalone composition and the first in a trilogy with the orchestral works Drifts (2016–17) and Water Atlas (2017–19). As their titles suggest, these pieces take inspiration from an abstract connection to the landscape of Fagerlund's hometown.” The notes also record that:

Finnish conductor Dima Slobodeniouk and Sebastian Fagerlund are longtime colleagues and collaborators. In 2007 Slobodeniouk commissioned Fagerlund's orchestral work Isola for the Korsholm Music Festival and led the premiere with the Vasa Symphony Orchestra. The conductor has overseen numerous notable performances of Fagerlund's works, including the US premiere of Stonework, with the Seattle Symphony in March 2024. Slobodeniouk has also led recordings of Fagerlund's Clarinet Concerto and Partita for Strings and Percussion.

Stonework builds to a powerful climax that transitions to a subdued dénouement. The composer was present to receive the audience’s acclaim.  

The celebrated soloist Augustin Hadelich then entered the stage for an excellent account of Samuel Barber’s extraordinary Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 14, which was originally finished in 1940 but revised in 1948. The composer contributed the following to The Philadelphia Orchestra’s program for the piece’s premiere:

The Concerto for Violin and Orchestra was completed in July, 1940, at Pocono Lake, Pennsylvania, and is Mr. Barber's most recent work for orchestra. It is lyric and rather intimate in character and a moderate-sized orchestra is used: eight woodwinds, two horns, two trumpets, percussion, piano, and strings. The first movement — allegro molto moderato — begins with a lyrical first subject announced at once by the solo violin, without any orchestral introduction. This movement as a whole has perhaps more the character of a sonata than concerto form. The second movement — andante sostenuto — is introduced by an extended oboe solo. The violin enters with a contrasting and rhapsodic theme, after which it repeats the oboe melody of the beginning. The last movement, a perpetual motion, exploits the more brilliant and virtuoso characteristics of the violin.

The initial movement’s opening is song-like and exquisite; the movement soon acquires a more driving rhythm and shifts to a more agitated mood—at times the music is quite dramatic—but it ends quietly. The ensuing slow movement also begins lyrically and melodiously but it becomes starker before the return of the primary theme; the music intensifies before concluding gently. The finale is propulsive and exciting, indeed dazzling, and ends abruptly and forcefully. Enthusiastic applause elicited a delightful encore from the violinist: he played his own virtuosic arrangement of Ervin T. Rouse's Orange Blossom Special.

The second half of the evening was even better: an outstanding rendition of Jean Sibelius’s magisterial Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 43, completed in 1902. About this work, the distinguished Finnish composer Sulho Ranta said: “There is something about this music — at least for us — that leads us to ecstasy; almost like a shaman with his magic drum.” Igor Stravinsky reported that Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s comment on it was, “Well, I suppose that's possible, too.” The first movement begins happily but the music soon acquires a more solemn—and then more passionate—character, closing softly with unexpected suddenness. The slow movement that follows opens somewhat mysteriously, even suspensefully, eventually entering, if only temporarily, a turbulent phase before attaining a charming serenity and then ascending to the sublime. The ensuing movement starts relatively eccentrically but arrestingly; it is not entirely without playfulness and has something of the quality of a scherzo but with contrasting, more soulful interludes. The finale, marked Allegro moderato, is stirring, exultant and magnificent, with some almost pastoral passages and hushed moments—it ultimately soars to a stunning, Romantic conclusion.

The artists deservedly received a standing ovation.