Concert Review: Journey Into Modernity

The New York Philharmonic plays Haydn, Wagner and Rouse.
by Ellen Fishbein

Alan Gilbert. Photo from nyphil.tumblr.com

The New York Philharmonic is reaching the last stages of its current Gilbert's Playlist mini-festival. On Thursday night, the program was a collision of Joseph Haydn, current composer-in-residence Christopher Rouse and Richard Wagner. The combination, in the words of music director Alan Gilbert, sparked "artistic electricity."

Opera Review: The Lockdown

The New York Philharmonic exercises Il Prigioniero.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Alan Gilbert. Photo by Chris Lee © 2011 The New York Philharmonic.

It is a universal conceit that no worthy Italian operas were written after Turandot, the last (and unfinished) opera of Giacomo Puccini. The development of so-called "serial" or modern music and the rise of Fascism in Italy conspired to put an end to four centuries of that country's most famous art form.

Concert Review: Jazz Odyssey, Part II

Gilbert's Playlist opens with Wynton Marsalis' Swing Symphony.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Meeting of the minds: Wynton Marsalis (left) and Alan Gilbert share a moment.
Photo by Chris Lee for nyphil.tumblr.com © 2013 The New York Philharmonic

The New York Philharmonic are back for a month-long stand at Avery Fisher Hall. On Saturday night, the orchestra played the final concert in the first weekend of Gilbert's Playlist, the month-long festival centered around the contents of music director Alan Gilbert's hard drive. The concert explored the amorphous territory between jazz and 20th century classical music, and featured the first subscription performances of Wynton Marsalis' Symphony No. 3, dubbed the Swing Symphony by the trumpeter turned composer.