9 May 2013
The Strings in the Cupboard
The EUROPE / SPRING 2013 tour has been a busy ride. This week, the Orchestra performed in three cities in three days. So yesterday during intermission in Essen’s Philharmonie, Philharmonic violinists and violists set their instruments down for a brief rest before the second half of the concert. The instruments were wide awake for Bruckner’s Third Symphony plus an encore.
Check out even more exclusive photos and videos on the Virtual Tour!
Photo: Chris Lee
22 April 2013
Burning Bright
“The violinist is that peculiarly human phenomenon distilled to a rare potency: half tiger, half poet.” — Yehudi Menuhin, who would have been 97 today and whose regular appearances with the New York Philharmonic spanned nearly 60 years.
19 March 2013
Better Know a Bach Soloist: Isabelle Faust
It’s worth selling your soul to hear Isabelle Faust play Bach. The German violinist and “Sleeping Beauty” (her 1704 Stradivarius violin) wake up at Avery Fisher Hall for the first time this week with Bach’s Violin Concertos in E major and A minor, under the baton of Bernard Labadie.
“We are an old couple now,” Faust explains of her violin (which owes its name to the fact that it was tucked away in a villa, undiscovered for 150 years) in a current Playbill feature, “quarreling through the day.” However, the pair converge harmonically, especially in Faust’s historically-informed performances of Bach. Heard above in one of her recordings for Harmonia Mundi, she samples the composer’s Sonata in A minor, BWV 1003.
(Source: Spotify)
4 January 2013
Shipping Up to Boston
Music Director Alan Gilbert is making a bee-line for Boston to begin the New Year with his friends Lisa Batiashvili and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, January 10–15. He’s taking with him some Stravinsky, Ravel, Dutilleux, and Tchaikovsky’s ultra-romantic Violin Concerto.
To our New England friends, enjoy the show!
20 November 2012
Welcome Back, Frank Peter Zimmermann
Tonight, violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann performs Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with the New York Philharmonic on a program which also features Mendelssohn’s Die Heimkehr aus der Fremde and Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, From the New World, led by Andrey Boreyko. You can also catch this program Friday–Saturday, November 23–24, and the following Tuesday, the 27th.
Can’t contain your excitement until tonight? Get your fix now by watching this clip of Mr. Zimmermann rehearsing Beethoven with the Orchestra last season during the EUROPE / WINTER Tour 2012.
6 November 2012
Vote Your Conscience
Here’s a contest for which you don’t have to wait on line to vote: your favorite Brahms symphony or concerto. This week Music Director Emeritus Kurt Masur has returned the Philharmonic for two weeks of all-Brahms programs, launching the Orchestra’s season of the German’s master’s symphonies and concertos?
Which is your favorite? Feel free to add a link to a YouTube clip of your pick.
25 October 2012
Brahms’s Musical Dialogue
Glenn Dicterow: ”In this three-part dialogue the themes are passed back and forth among the cello, violin, and orchestra…. We do have similar feelings about this work — it’s very organic. That’s the joy of it.”
Carter Brey: ”We’re so used to playing off each other, I almost don’t have to think about it. It’s a combination of support and spontaneity.”
So said the Philharmonic Concertmaster and Principal Cello about performing as co-soloists in Brahms’s Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Orchestra, which they will do again November 8–13 and 13, in a reunion with Music Director Emeritus Kurt Masur. Experience their partnership for yourself in what Glenn calls “one if the greatest concertos ever written” and what Carter identifies as “the Brahms concerto” for cellists.
22 October 2012
Encore! Encore!
An enthusiastic Philharmonic audience Saturday evening wouldn’t let violinist Augustin Hadelich go after his performance of Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole. He responded with an encore of the third movement, Andante, from Bach’s Violin Sonata No. 2 in A minor.
Will Hadelich repeat the feat? Catch the last performance of his Avery Fisher Hall debut program Tuesday evening at 7:30 p.m., conducted by Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos.
Student Rush tickets for this week’s performances are available now.
17 October 2012
Augustin Hadelich Makes a Mean Music Vid
Violinist Augustin Hadelich has been busy these past few seasons. Not only has he stepped in for an ailing soloist to perform with the Philharmonic at the Bravo! Vail Music Festival in 2010, performed again with the Orchestra in 2011 in Vail and at Caramoor, but also during this time, released two music videos titled Dawn (seen here) and Rhapsodie.
Catch Augustin off the small screen and on stage, when he performs Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole October 18–23, led by Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos.
