How About Some More New Stuff?

[James]

By ZACHARY WOOLFE
Published: January 6, 2012


H. K. Gruber, left, along with Alan Gilbert and members of the New York Philharmonic performing
Mr. Gruber's "Frankenstein!!" during the Contact! new-music series.

THE applause was warm last month when Alan Gilbert was presented with the 2011 Ditson Conductor's Award at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Mr. Gilbert was being honored, according to the award citation, for his "exceptional commitment to the performance of works by American composers and to contemporary music," and the setting — onstage during a pause in the season's first installment of Contact!, the New York Philharmonic's new-music series — could not have been more appropriate. Contact! is just one of the ways in which Mr. Gilbert has demonstrated commitment to the music of our time since he became the Philharmonic's music director in 2009. But that concert was also troubling, the latest in a series of missed opportunities this season to program and promote new work.

In his short speech accepting the Ditson Award, Mr. Gilbert mentioned not feeling a responsibility toward programming new music.

When I asked him about that during a recent conversation, he said, "When I said that I don't feel a responsibility, I was being a little bit sly and provocative on purpose."

"I do feel that we have a responsibility to play new music," he added, "and I feel personally responsible to create an enthusiastic, energized atmosphere around the subject of composition. But I was also not being disingenuous. I don't start out when I'm making programs thinking: 'All right, let's get a lot of contemporary music into the season. Let's make sure we do a certain amount of music by American composers or New York composers.' We're not going for quotas or that kind of thing."

But these "quotas" are straw men. No one advocates precise allotments of contemporary music. (Maybe people should.) All we want is an orchestra that is genuinely engaged in its city and culture. A sustained, all-out dedication to new music is a necessity to keep the Philharmonic from becoming an exercise in nostalgia. It should be the central part of the orchestra's mission, but it is an area conspicuously underserved this season.

The Philharmonic's tag line for Contact! is "Prepare to go where no audience has gone before," but the centerpiece of the Met show, H. K. Gruber's "Frankenstein!!," has been done hundreds of times since it was written in the late 1970s. The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra performed it at Carnegie Hall just two years ago.

In fact only half of the six Contact! pieces this season were composed in the last decade. It is true that second, third and later hearings are as important as premieres in establishing works in the repertory. But Pierre Boulez's 1991-93 "... explosante-fixe ...," to be heard at the second and final Contact! concert in June is, like "Frankenstein!!," hardly unfamiliar to New York audiences. And surely names as eminent as Boulez and Elliott Carter (who has a premiere in the June show) belong in the orchestra's main subscription series.

Besides Alexandre Lunsqui, who is 42, none of this season's Contact! composers are younger than 50; Mr. Boulez is 86, and Mr. Carter turned 103 last month. A new-music series should include the work of younger artists, particularly in a city with so many talented ones. I remember an exciting concert in April 2010, during Mr. Gilbert's and the series's first season. The program featured three premieres, by Sean Shepherd (who was 30 at the time), Nico Muhly, 28, and Matthias Pintscher, 39. There was a vivid sense not just of music's present but also of its future.

The soloist in Mr. Pintscher's premiere, "songs from Solomon's garden," was the baritone Thomas Hampson, who that season was the Philharmonic's first artist in residence. Last season the artist in residence was the German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, who performed in no fewer than three world premieres, an American premiere and a New York premiere during her fascinating tenure.

This season the artist in residence is another German violinist, Frank Peter Zimmermann. He is playing Bach's Concerto for Two Violins and his sonatas for violin and keyboard, a Brahms chamber concert and the violin concertos of Berg, Beethoven and Dvorak.

Give me a break.

The subscription season's roster of guest conductors includes significant names, but they are conducting only two works by living composers, one from 1988 and the other from 1966: semi-new new music, at best. The other six works by living composers are being conducted by Mr. Gilbert. There is no space for other conductors' perspectives on recent composers and trends and little sense of using distinguished guests as opportunities to expand the repertory rather than just maintain it.

Compare this to the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel. In November and December that orchestra's former music director, Esa-Pekka Salonen, led two premieres in a week, including a recently rediscovered Shostakovich opera. A few weeks before that Semyon Bychkov conducted Richard Dubugnon's new concerto for two pianos and double orchestra. All these premieres were separate from the orchestra's designated new-music series, the invaluable Green Umbrella. And these were just part of a single month in the life of a vibrant orchestra.

During our conversation Mr. Gilbert spoke of plans for a festival of New York composers. A similar idea was batted around for the concert commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. The orchestra chose Mahler's Second Symphony (1888-94) instead.

It's not all bad news. The orchestra's largely unheralded chamber-music series at Merkin Concert Hall — the next installment is on Sunday — is a bastion of intriguing programs. But the depressing fact remains that in its 2011-12 subscription season the Philharmonic is playing just eight works by living composers on the stage of Avery Fisher Hall. Quota or no quota, that's not enough.

I understand what Mr. Gilbert means when he speaks of wanting to avoid a sense of responsibility in an endeavor that should be approached with enthusiasm rather than obligation. And I recognize the myriad difficulties of creating a season and the many constituencies he must try to please.

But it was not quite a century ago that the composer Edgard Varèse denounced American orchestras as "mausoleums, mortuaries of musical reminiscences." Our arts institutions are always in danger of falling onto this path of least resistance. Endless debate about dueling Brahms interpretations takes the place of discourse about new work.

It truly is Mr. Gilbert's responsibility, his and his orchestra's, to do more and better.

NYTimes: Music

[Superhorn]

   This  article is typical of the NY Times on the NY Phil - totally one-sided, slanted and highly misleading .
The fact remains that in the past 30 years or so, the orchestra has actually played a lot more new music than most other orchestras.
Why do Anthony Tommasini and the other Times critics make the same old specious complaints.
To add insult to injury ,they make invidious comparisons  with other top U.S. orchestras such as those of San Francisco and L.A.
,whose programming is supposedly so much more imaginative and adventurous.  BUT THAT'S NOT TRUE !   
    These critics disingenuously mention the fact that the orchestra plays the warhorses of Beethoven,Brahms,Tchakovsky,Rachmaninov, etc. But SO DO ORCHESTRAS EVERYWHERE !
   The New York Philharmonic, under music directors Mehta,Masur, Maazel, Glbert, as well as distinguised gust conductors
such as Slatkin,Zinman Eschenbach,, and others , has played new or recent works by a wide,wide variety of contemporary composers of many different
nationalities and compositional styles, including plenty of Americans .   There are many other U.S. and European orchestras which would not dare to program music by Boulez,Carter, Messiaen,Lutolsawski, Saariaho,Henze,  Rihm,  Gubaidullina  etc, which the NY Phil.  has regularly done .  They're terrified of audiences voting with their feet , so it's not entirely their fault .
    But why won't critics give the NY Phil. credit for its consistently courageous and adventurous programming. ?

[some guy]

Robert,

Your spirited defenses of the NY Phil (as well as your spirited attacks of the NY Times) would be more convincing if you could see your way clear to supporting your assertions. (And repeating an assertion is not the same as supporting it.)

This  article is typical of the NY Times on the NY Phil - totally one-sided, slanted and highly misleading .
The fact remains that in the past 30 years or so, the orchestra has actually played a lot more new music than most other orchestras.

Some details here? Is the article typical? Is it slanted and misleading? What facts led you to draw those conclusions.

Why do Anthony Tommasini and the other Times critics make the same old specious complaints.

I dunno. Why do you keep using adjectives in the same question-begging way? (Are their complaints actually specious? Maybe they keep making them because they have some substance.)

To add insult to injury ,they make invidious comparisons  with other top U.S. orchestras such as those of San Francisco and L.A.

If the point is that NY playing too little contemporary music, how is comparing it to other orchestras invidious? That's part of support. They're supporting their conclusions.

...whose programming is supposedly so much more imaginative and adventurous.  BUT THAT'S NOT TRUE !

Some more support here? Is it indeed not true? (Remember, you really have to do something besides simply say that it's not true. You have to demonstrate it with examples and illustrations, with facts and statistics.)
   

There are many other U.S. and European orchestras which would not dare to program music by Boulez,Carter, Messiaen,Lutolsawski, Saariaho,Henze,  Rihm,  Gubaidullina  etc, which the NY Phil.  has regularly done .

Now who's being disingenuous? The context up to this point was "top" US orchestras. Keep it there, I say. And how much do you know about European orchestras? I cannot think of any that would not dare to program music by the people you mentioned.

But why won't critics give the NY Phil. credit for its consistently courageous and adventurous programming. ?

Maybe they want it to be even better?

[Superhorn]

   If you contact the New York Philharmonic for a complete repertoire list from the past 30 years or so , under music directors Mehta,Masur,Maazel,Gilbert as well as guest conductors , you will see what a wide variety of new or recent works it has performed.
   Works by composers of many different nationalities,  including Americans, women, Asians and Latin Americans .
Accusations of neglect of new music are ludicrous .  I repeat - the New York Philharmonic has played much more new music in our time than many other orchestras in Europe,America and elsewhere .  This is a fact .  Any music critic who accuses the NY Phil of neglecting new music is either  totally misinformed or lying through his teeth .
    But if you were to believe critics at the Times and other publications , you would think that the NY Phil . was a stodgy,hidebound institution which did nothing but endlessly repeat the same old repertory warhorses year in, year out  .  This is ludicrous .
   The orchestra has not only played a wide variety of new or recent works, but  has revived many interesting rarities from the past
which had  been neglected for a long time .  The facts totally contradict critics such as Tommasini and Woolfe .

[some guy]

I repeat

Yes. This is what you do.

the New York Philharmonic has played much more new music in our time than many other orchestras in Europe,America and elsewhere .  This is a fact .

You are correct; that is a fact. But facts come in two flavors, true and false. The sun is hot is a true fact. The moon is hot is a false fact.

And there's another pair of attributes about facts, supported and unsupported. Your fact is unsupported. You invite us to look at the NY Phil's programming over the last thirty years. I have done so. (It's not laid out very well; and is quite tedious to do, too. Have you done it yourself?)

But for this fact of yours to be supported, you would also have had to have done the same for all the other orchestras in Europe, America, and elsewhere. Have you done that? Do you really know, from the facts, where the NY Phil ranks in playing new music?

Maybe you do. Maybe you have done all your homework. But why so coy about showing your work?