Concert Review: A Very Unexpected Journey

Simone Young leads the New York Philharmonic in the Mahler Sixth.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

The Big Bang: Daniel Druckman swings the hammer at the climax of the Mahler Sixth.
Photo by Caitlin Ochs © 2019 The New York Philharmonic.

Nobody expected that this would be the week that Simone Young would make her long-awaited return to the New York Philharmonic. The Australian conductor, acclaimed for her work with the Hamburg Philharmonic, had not taken the podium at David Geffen Hall in twenty-one years. (However. she is on the schedule for next season, leading Elgar and Strauss.)  Ms. Young is no stranger to New York audiences, but most of her conducting engagements in this city have been at the Metropolitan Opera, and this is her first appearance with the orchestra since her debut in 1998.

Concert Review: Hammer of the Gods

Semyon Bychkov conducts Mahler's Sixth.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The Mahler Sixth meets its maker at the New York Philharmonic.
L.-R. Kyle Zerna (with gong) Daniel Druckman (with hammer), Markus Rhoten (with timpani mallets)
and Christopher Lamb with cymbals. Photo by Chris Lee © 2016 The New York Philharmonic.

When the New York Philharmonic plays the symphonies of Gustav Mahler, it is always a meaningful experience. On Tuesday night, the orchestra that that Mahler himself once led gave the fourth and final performance this season of the composer's Symphony No. 6 in A minor at Avery Fisher Hall. Lasting an hour and a half and requiring enormous orchestral forces, this symphony stands out among the composer's works for its relentless, military character and dark ending, in which the music's quest to escape its dark home key is (quite literally) stopped in its tracks.