Concert Review: Conflagration, Comedy and Crisis

A perfect pair of programs at Mostly Mozart.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Explosante-fixé: Paul Lewis and the parts of a piano.
Photo by Joseph Molina © 2016 harmonia mundi usa.

The Mostly Mozart Festival is celebrating half a century of providing refuge to New Yorkers coping with the city's erratic August temperatures with air-cooled concert halls and skilled performances of classical and early Romantic repertory. Two of those programs were on offer Tuesday night, with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra offering their first symphonic concert at David Geffen Hall this year, and Paul Lewis playing Schubert and Brahms upstairs in the elegant glass confines of the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse.

Concert Review: Never A Dull Moment

Pianist Paul Lewis makes his Philharmonic debut.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Christoph von Dohnányi. Photo © Fotostudio Heinreich
courtesy HarrisonParrott. 

When the New York Philharmonic programs a Brahms concerto (the No. 1) and a Schumann symphony (the No. 2) under the baton of the venerable Christoph von Dohnányi, the expectation is for a convivial, slightly stuffy evening of high-toned "classical" music with none of the atonality and modernism that has jarred conservative listeners for the last 100 years. However, last night's performance was full of surprises.