Through Force of Passion and of Sense

With a fond danksche, we left Munich earlier this week with a fanfare from Tchaikovsky in this encore filmed at the Gasteig, the Polonaise from Eugene Onegin. Check out more via our virtual tour!

(Video: Chris Lee)

It’s Complicated

With both Tchaikovsky and Brahms celebrating their birthdays today, we puzzled over how to salute two of the very-beloved but least-lucky-in-love composers. Fortunately, Some ecards had us covered.

You can also download our concert from earlier this season featuring both (with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6, the aptly named Pathétique, which the Orchestra reprises in Munich tonight as part of EUROPE / SPRING 2013, and Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2 featuring Rudolf Buchbinder) by clicking here.

с днем рождения and Alles Gute zum Geburtstag!

Where in the World Is Alan Gilbert?

Now, he’s in Leipzig, for concerts tonight and tomorrow, conducting the historic Gewandhaus Orchestra (which has been led by a few maestros you might have heard of, such as  Mendelssohn and Masur) in an all-Russian program: Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony and Violin Concerto No. 1 with Lisa Batiashvili (in a warm up to their performance of the work with the Philharmonic in New York this June), as well as Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. 

Alan is coming back to New York next week, and it’s about time. We’ve missed him!

Cheese!

Jennifer Koh and her husband, pianist Benjamin Hochman, flashed their pearly whites for our photographer after the violinist’s subscription concert debut with the Philharmonic last night.

The program, including Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fanstasy, Lutoslawski’s Chain 2: Dialogue for Violin and Orchestra, and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 will be repeated tonight and Saturday.

Being Garrison Keillor

Show tunes, blues, ribaldry, Pomp and Circumstance, and “My Girl.” Music by Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Haydn, Brian Wilson, Ligeti, and Jerry Garcia. All this, plus Piano Ping-Pong, occupies the thoughts of Prairie Home Companion host Garrison Keillor, who returns to the Philharmonic on October 16 to celebrate his birthday. Single tickets are now available for Mr. Keillor at 70.

Check out what Philharmonic fans had to say about the 2012 Concerts in the Parks, presented by Didi and Oscar Schafer:

Countless studies have documented the effects of music on the human brain (there is a reason they pump classical music into Penn Station). However, we don’t believe scientists have documented anything like the effect the New York Philharmonic had on these concertgoers in Central Park Friday evening, caught on tape by a friend of The New York Observer.

The Concerts in the Parks party continues tonight in Van Cortlandt Park as Andrey Boreyko leads the New York Philharmonic in Wagner, Tchaikovsky, and Brahms.

When the New York Symphony (a forerunner of the New York Philharmonic) gave the U.S. premiere of the complete Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in 1899, the soloist was a 21-year-old woman, Maud Powell. Critics were impressed with her technique and choice of a difficult work, but couldn’t help a bit of condescension: ”It was a treat to hear a woman play the violin so well, and only congratulations are to be offered to the lady,” wrote The New York Times.  

Violinist James Ehnes tore through the concerto last evening during the Orchestra’s second concert in Central Park, bringing picnickers on the Great Lawn to their feet in ovation. He’ll repeat the Tchaikovsky favorite this evening, as the Philharmonic heads to Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx for the final Concerts in the Parks program, conducted by Andrey Borekyo.

Oh, What a Night

A little drizzle at intermission didn’t deter the Philharmonic’s dedicated audience in Central Park Friday for the first Concerts in the Parks program on the Great Lawn. It was a delightful night, beginning with remarks by Alec Baldwin, Oscar Schafer, and Zarin Mehta; continuing with the powerful strains of Tchaikovsky and Respighi; and concluding with Fourth of July-worthy fireworks. The borough-trotting continued Sunday on Staten Island with the New York Philharmonic Brass.

Relive the sights and sounds on the Virtual Tour.