Concert Review: Music That Goes Over Easy

The New York Philharmonic offers a three course holiday meal.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Chick Bal-Á: Detail from Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks by Natasha Turovsky,
inspired by Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky. Image © 2005 Natasha Turovsky

This week, the New York Philharmonic offered two decidedly (and welcomely) secular concerts to warm a very frigid holiday week in New York City. Since the orchestra is at present without a music director, this program was entrusted to Bramwell Tovey, a conductor usually engaged for lighter fare.

Concert Review: The Beautiful South

Spanish Nights at the New York Philharmonic.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

El Sombrero de Tres Picos by Salvador Dalí.  Image © 1945 Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí

In writing classical music reviews, the general practice is to see the first performance of a particular concert program in order to hear the works on offer and thus inform readership of the quality (or lack therein) of the performance. However, due to health issues this weekend, I wound up attending Tuesday night's performance of the New York Philharmonic's Spanish Nights program, an engaging evening of music inspired by the Iberian peninsula under the baton of Bramwell Tovey.