Music Review: Alan Gilbert, Emanuel Ax and the New York Philharmonic

    Its summer and we all want things to be just a little easier, and that includes the NY Phil and its audience.   We wish for easy and free parking and there it was right across from Lincoln Center.  We ask for a program that is fun and somehow doesn't tax us too much and Mr. Ax, Mr. Gilbert and company are glad to oblige with a program that was more laid back than it looked at first glance.
 
     First up was Mr. Ax and pauseHaydn.  The rendition was nothing if not fleet, as if the soloist had to get home for a favorite TV show.   We sat on the piano side and couldn't help but be impressed by Mr. Ax's virtuoso playing, but by the time we got into it was over.  Just what we expect from an opening piece but we kind of expect more from a first rank pianist.

      The other two pieces are more linked in my mind.  The First Christopher Rouse's Symphony No. 3, in its NY premier, promised a lot with a huge orchestration.  One expects a composer to make a great statement with such a huge force behind him but Mr. Rouse choose instead to make a lot of little statements featuring a hodge-podge of different styles from different sections of the orchestra.   It was fun in its way and people enjoyed it but it seemed a little too much like the composer showing off all his tricks.

    After the intermission we had the privilege of listening to the music of Richard Wagner, sort of.  The piece, A Ring Journey, arranged by Mr. Gilbert after suite by another conductor, Erich Leinsdorf.  Somehow it may have been one conductor to many.  Despite heroic work by Philip Myers  and the rest of the brass section the work lost the heroic feel of the actual ring.  One problem was the work was a juke box musical of themes from the ring, played out of order.  The result was as flat and strangely un-Wagnerian as I recall Mr. Leinsdorf's Wagner conducting was at the MET in my youth .  Laid back Wagner for summer, not bad exactly but perhaps a little too easy even for summer.