Evolution, not revolution: The New York Philharmonic 2009-10.

(Posted this afternoon on the TONY Blog)

Alan Gilbert under the spotlight

"Evolution, not revolution" was the theme of the morning when the New York Philharmonic gathered the local press corps, artists, assorted guests and dignitaries on the stage at Avery Fisher Hall for a press conference announcing details of its 2009–10 season. Speculation had run high ever since the Phil named Alan Gilbert its music director designate in July 2007 that his inaugural season would see a marked upturn in innovative programming and contemporary music. The question was always just how far the orchestra's commitment to such initiatives would go.

The answer? Considerably further than most observers might dare have imagined. The Phil announced some time ago that Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg had been appointed composer-in-residence, and that the orchestra would be establishing a new-music ensemble. Further details tumbled forth today like candies from a burst piñata: multiple new works from Lindberg, as well as the U.S. premiere of his amazing Clarinet Concerto; commissioned pieces by Christopher Rouse, Nico Muhly, Matthias Pintscher, Marc-André Dalbavie and others. And the long-overdue New York premiere of György Ligeti's landmark opera, Le Grand Macabre.

Garbed in a natty-casual mix of sport coat, tie and black jeans, Gilbert -- the son of two Philharmonic violinists, and the first native-born New Yorker ever appointed music director here -- outlined his vision of the Philharmonic as being "both museum and laboratory." For some observers, that first quality is sure to be as important as the second; Gilbert, like any number of young conductors (including Esa-Pekka Salonen once upon a time, and Gustavo Dudamel right now), has drawn criticism from observers unwilling to accept that anyone under 50 might have something worth saying in Beethoven and Mahler. Gilbert said that he sees the orchestra's natural terrain as being "the great works of music, beautifully performed" and "the most creative and inventive of the new works being composed."

Vice president Matías Tarnopolsky, Alan Gilbert and president Zarin Mehta

Gilbert went on to divulge more details on certain concerts that best represented his ideals and goals. In addition to the new Lindberg piece on the opening-night concert -- long an affair solely concerned with wardrobes and warhorses -- Gilbert will conduct Messiaen's Poèmes pour Mi, sung by megawatt soprano Renée Fleming, and Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique. That last work will also play a large part in the Phil's "Day of Music," a day-long free open house with a dress rehearsal and a complete performance of the Symphonie, on September 12.

Gilbert's second program will feature Mahler's Symphony No. 3, a work he fondly recalled hearing Zubin Mehta conduct here when Gilbert was 8 years old, and again when Leonard Bernstein made his towering final recording here. A pairing of Brahms's Violin Concerto and Schoenberg's Pelleas and Melisande will quietly introduce Gilbert's stealth agenda: "Schoenberg is beautiful." On the fourth program, Gilbert plans to elide the vaporous ending of Ives's The Unanswered Question without pause into the fragile unaccompanied-keyboard preamble to Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4, with Emanuel Ax at the keyboard and another new Lindberg piece on the concert's first half.

Following those programs, the Philharmonic heads up to Caramoor in Katonah, NY, to help inaugurate the first fall festival at that longtime bastion of summer fare. Then it's off to Asia for a tour that includes the orchestra's first-ever visit to Hanoi, as well as stops in Tokyo and Abu Dhabi.

Alan Gilbert and Magnus Lindberg

The selection of Magnus Lindberg, a prominent Finnish composer, for a residency with the Phil, Gilbert explained, was based on "his encyclopedic knowledge of old and new music." Lindberg quipped that the position was contrary to expectations of what a composer typically does. "You have to be isolated," he quipped. "You sit out in the forest and you write your music." Personally, he noted, he craves more contact, and looks forward to working closely with the composers selected to create pieces for Contact, the new-music series he'll be curating for the orchestra at Symphony Space.

Another newly announced initiative will see a guest conductor invited each year to curate a three-week mini-festival. The inaugural honors go to the ubiquitous Valery Gergiev, whose presentation, "The Russian Stravinsky," arrives in April 2010. Gergiev was not present, but in a video interview with Gilbert he described his concept: when conducting Stravinsky's Petrushka on a program with another composer's music, the style isn't hard to differentiate, but to make the same piece stand out in the context of other Stravinsky works -- The Firebird, The Rite of Spring and Les Noces requires a deeper investigation into the specific character of each piece. Joining Gergiev for his series here are pianist Alexei Volodin and the Mariinsky Theatre Chorus; one sure highlight of the season will be the opera-oratorio Oedipus Rex, to be performed four times in late April and early May with a cast that includes Waltraud Meier and Anthony Dean Griffey.

Alan Gilbert and Thomas Hampson

Yet another new initiative announced this morning is the creation of a new artist-in-residence position, to be filled for the inaugural season by baritone Thomas Hampson. That announcement alone gave some indication that the orchestra views this as another means by which to extend its purview: Surely few vocalists have been appointed to similar berths among major orchestras. Hampson, who spoke of his ideas for the role with an eloquently patrician air, will perform as a soloist in Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony (conducted by Vladimir Jurowski in his Phil debut , Nov. 5-10), John Adams's The Wound Dresser (Jan 14-16) and a new commissioned work by Matthias Pintscher, details of which are to be determined later. He is also to be involved as a recital artist, a musical advocate, a lecturer and an educator.

The biggest coup announced today -- and the one that came closest to not happening for practical reasons, if orchestra president Zarin Mehta's comments were anything to go by -- was the local premiere of Le Grand Macabre (May 27-29), the absence of which has been completely inexplicable (and became far more so last year, when Lincoln Center saw its outlandish production of Die Soldaten turn into the year's hottest ticket).

Alan Gilbert and Douglas Fitch

Staging Ligeti's maniacal farce is director and puppeteer Douglas Fitch, who has previously created novel concert stagings of The Soldier's Tale and Das Rheingold in collaboration with Gilbert. Innovation will surely be a key element in the staging Fitch described, a mix of puppets, clearly visible puppeteers and oversize video projections.

Returning to the Avery Fisher Hall podium in 2009-10 will be Riccardo Muti (for five weeks of programs), Kurt Masur, Antonio Pappano, Helmuth Rilling (for the annual Messiah), David Robertson and Xian Zhang. Soloists appearing for the first time will include clarinetist Kari Kriikku, trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger, and pianists David Fray and Nicolas Hodges. Daniel Boico, the orchestra's newly appointed assistant conductor, will lead the orchestra's three Young Peoples' Concerts.

Happily, in light of the financial crises that have rocked all sectors of the arts sphere and the larger world beyond, Mehta assured all assembled that the Phil's health is at present robust. A representative from Credit Suisse, the orchestra's new primary sponsor, reported that the firm's commitment to supporting the arts remains as strong as ever -- and even serves as a "happy distraction" from the gloom elsewhere. When a reporter inquired about the stability of the orchestra's own footing, Mehta indicated that ticket sales and gifts remained strong throughout 2008-09, but noted that it was too soon to know whether there would be an appreciable dip going into the new season. Modest cutbacks and general fiscal prudence were being exerted, but never at the cost of the artistry, Mehta insisted.

Alan Gilbert and Alec Baldwin

One introduction remained to be made. "Many people went to great lengths to be here today," Gilbert said, "but only one won a Golden Globe last night." Alec Baldwin, whose passion for classical music came out in a Los Angeles Times blog piece by Choire Sicha last August, was introduced as the new voice of the New York Philharmonic's weekly radio broadcasts. Most orchestras, Baldwin noted, would have aimed for class by picking someone like Glenn Close or Sigourney Weaver; only the New York Philharmonic would dare to choose the guy from "the silliest, most inane show on television." But he also noted a unique qualification for the position: "Like Magnus, I would go out to the forest to prepare for my work." Baldwin ended his first public appearance on the Phil's behalf with a request -- or perhaps a demand: "I would like to be referred to as the announcer-in-residence."

Comments

[Eric L.]

Very cool!

[Henry Holland]

Pretty tame stuff, really --the usual smattering of New Music is in the usual "overture, 7-10 minutes" remit fir the most part-- but the continuing bizarreness of concert programming is present too.

Nov. 5, 6, 7 & 10
Matthias Pintscher: towards Osiris
Mozart: Symphony No. 38
Zemlinsky: Lyric Symphony

What on earth is the Mozart doing there, other than to get people to attend, because musically, that's a horrible choice. Pintscher's hyper-modernism and Zemlinsky's wonderful late-Romanticism would have been better served by playing, say, a Prokofiev piano concerto that's not #3 or some Bartok or Strauss.

[Steve Smith]

You're not wrong in either of your observations, Henry. Sedgewick Clark, a longtime observer of (and collaborator with) the Philharmonic, made the first point in his smart reportage yesterday at MusicalAmerica.com.

The overall sense of openness and friendliness toward new music, though, is something strikingly new, as is the fact that so many of the composers being tapped for Lindberg's "Contact" series are young and American. And the notion that among Thomas Hampson's planned activities is a Pintscher world premiere, or that one of the Young People's Concerts is being built around Lindberg's Feria? Things like that haven't happened here in a long, long time.

Truly, I think, if Gilbert is to make a lasting impact and bring the bulk of the existing audience along with him, evolution is perhaps a better tack than revolution. Don't tell your supporters that "everything you know is wrong" (or at least passé); get the core audience to understand and trust you, and then take it along for the ride.

You're definitely right about Mozart being a strange fit for the program you cite; I had a similar sense last week, when a wayward Mozart concerto was programmed among works by Debussy, Messiaen and Murail.