New York Philharmonic Carve Out "Stonework" & More

Details

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.