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      Review: Michael Tilson Thomas, a Podium Hero, Returns

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      The eminent conductor appeared with the New York Philharmonic, his first public performance since brain surgery this summer.In early August, the conductor Michael Tilson Thomas announced that, following surgery to remove a brain tumor, he was withdrawing from his upcoming performances to receive treatment. “I look forward,” he said, “to seeing everyone again in November.”Even coming from such an indefatigable musician, still dynamic at 76, that promise seemed optimistic.But on Thursday at Alice Tully Hall, looking a little weather-beaten but still vigorous and bright-eyed, Thomas took the podium to lead the New York Philharmonic in inspiring performances of demanding works by Ruth Crawford Seeger, Berg and Beethoven.This was his first public performance since his announcement, as well as his first time with the Philharmonic in 10 years, and he was clearly determined not to miss it. He is scheduled to lead two upcoming programs with the San Francisco Symphony, where he ended a quarter-century tenure as music director last year. But returning to the Philharmonic at this difficult time was very meaningful, he said in a short video released this week.What moved me most about the video was that Thomas said nothing directly about his illness. Instead, ever the educator — the best explainer of music to general audiences since his mentor, Leonard Bernstein — he shared keen insights into the works he was offering. He kept it all about the music.On Thursday at Tully, the hearty ovation that greeted his appearance might have gone on longer had Thomas not quickly taken the podium to get to work — standing to conduct and looking alert and immersed, his cues a deft combination of precision and flexibility.He began with Crawford Seeger’s visionary Andante for Strings, written in the 1930s but anticipating experimental styles of 30 or 40 years later. The quasi-atonal music unfurls in small recurring motifs that overlap and build into outbursts of intensity. It was gripping.Thomas, with the superb Gil Shaham as soloist, then turned to Berg’s Violin Concerto, one of the greatest works of the 20th century. Berg dedicated the piece to “the memory of an angel” — the 18-year-old daughter of Walter Gropius and Alma Mahler Werfel, who had died of polio. In the video Thomas says that the piece contemplates death, but “goes beyond that to a really big and beautiful vision of what the totality of life is, in our whole planet, and in the whole universe.”Berg drew upon 12-tone techniques here, though the first movement deftly folds in musical evocations of a young woman’s youth in Vienna, with bits of waltzes and folk songs. From the start, Shaham (with glowing sound and, when called for, spiky intensity) and Thomas (drawing rich, lucid sonorities from the orchestra) brought out the lyrical elements that run through the score.In the second movement, which begins with wrenching expressions of grief and anger, Shaham dispatched the tangles of skittish lines and blocks of heaving chords with eerily controlled vehemence. The strains of “Es ist genug,” one of Bach’s most harmonically daring chorales, gradually enter as a gesture of consolation. Yet this performance remained alert to the unresolved, searching strands that linger until the end.During the bows that followed, Thomas interrupted the applause. “I forced Gil to learn this piece,” he told the audience, smiling. “Good idea, wasn’t it?”After intermission — the Philharmonic’s first this season, after a run of shorter performances — Thomas led a compelling account of Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony. In the first movement, rather than just going for stirring energy and grandeur, he seemed intent on bringing out the intricacies and inner textures of the music.Perhaps overly so — though the performance gained in sweep and determination as it went on. The slow movement, a noble funeral march, was magnificent, almost Mahlerian. And the Scherzo showed that Thomas was in no slow-tempo mode: The music whisked by with fleetness and crackling rhythms. The Finale was joyous — majestic and exciting, even teasing out the touches of silliness.At one point, between movements, Thomas unabashedly pulled up his visibly sagging pants, which elicited some good-natured laughter from the audience. He turned around and said, “Post-pandemic waistline,” prompting more laughter.But in general he looked fit and lively. Beethoven famously scratched out the original dedication of his “Eroica” — to Napoleon — and instead titled it in honor of a nameless hero. On Thursday, that hero was Michael Tilson Thomas.New York PhilharmonicThis program is repeated through Sunday at Alice Tully Hall, Manhattan; nyphil.org. More

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      Review: At the Philharmonic, Contemporary Is King for a Week

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      Music by Missy Mazzoli, Anthony Davis and John Adams was conducted by Dalia Stasevska, in her debut with the orchestra.You could hear a tantalizing possible future for the New York Philharmonic on Wednesday evening at Alice Tully Hall — as well as some of the orchestra’s present difficulties. The program at Tully, one of the Philharmonic’s bases as David Geffen Hall is renovated this season, featured three contemporary works. One was by the safely canonized John Adams, the other two by names newer to Philharmonic audiences: Missy Mazzoli and Anthony Davis.Not that either of the two is really unknown. Both have been tapped for premieres at the Metropolitan Opera in the coming years — for Davis, the belated Met debut of his “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X,” from the 1980s, and for Mazzoli, a new adaptation of George Saunders’s novel “Lincoln in the Bardo.” But until this week, neither had been played on a Philharmonic subscription program.Their works landed with persuasive panache on Wednesday, aided by powerful but never overly brash conducting by Dalia Stasevska, also making her Philharmonic debut. But there were some problems with the overall sound. The sonic glare of Tully, generally a home for chamber music rather than larger-scale contemporary symphonic repertory, sometimes worked against the haunted sensuality of Mazzoli’s “Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres),” written in 2013 and revised three years later.Stasevska fostered warmth whenever possible, shaping the 12-minute piece’s transfers of elegantly gloomy melodic ornaments from section to section of the ensemble with care and relish. And when a small army of harmonicas gently peeked out from behind the work’s often mournful textures, they glimmered delicately. Stasevska also found moments to collaborate with the bright harshness of Tully’s acoustic, allowing herself a leap and a stomp on the podium during one transition between a string glissando and a full-orchestra blast. Call it fighting the hall to a draw.Davis’s 25-minute, four-movement clarinet concerto “You Have the Right to Remain Silent,” written in 2006 and revised in 2011, fared more unevenly. The superbly varied work was inspired by a time that Davis, who is Black, was pulled over by the police while driving in Boston in the 1970s. Amid the dense music, he sometimes asks the players to recite portions of the Miranda warning. (On a recording by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, this is done in a deadened Sprechstimme.)On Wednesday, the Philharmonic did well by the concerto’s debt to Charles Mingus in passages of gravelly extended technique and others of deceptively breezy swing — and, as with Mingus, at the intersection of the two.But the initial vocalization of the Miranda text wasn’t quite crisp enough, slightly deflating the dramatic stakes. And the frenetic cello figures that followed lacked the tight ensemble necessary to suggest the first movement’s title: “Interrogation.”Yet the soloist, the Philharmonic’s principal clarinetist Anthony McGill, excelled in the grave material for contra-alto clarinet in the second movement, “Loss,” while his sound turned more arid amid more assaultive music in the third movement, “Incarceration.” The sly final movement, “The Dance of the Other,” felt the most inspired. There’s a satirical edge to this music, but in lingering, affecting phrases McGill also evoked a fully sincere yearning to travel from the grimness of interrogation, loss and incarceration.With its febrile mixture of influences from Minimalism, Hindemith’s pellucid peculiarity and classic cartoons, Adams’s 22-minute Chamber Symphony for 15 musicians, from 1992 — which the Philharmonic has played just once before, in 2000 — needs subtlety as well as brio. On Wednesday the middle movement, “Aria With Walking Bass,” was more plodding than witty. But an energetic “Roadrunner” finale was a saving grace. (And McGill deserves plaudits for playing the fiendish piece right after the Davis concerto, and without any intermission.)Philharmonic audiences will get more Adams soon, and in more welcoming acoustics, when the orchestra plays his Saxophone Concerto at Carnegie Hall in January. But here’s hoping we also hear more of Davis’s music; how about his piano concerto “Wayang V,” with its composer as soloist? And more Mazzoli, too. Hopefully both will be frequent presences once the Philharmonic returns to Geffen Hall next season. Refreshed acoustics do only so much; Davis and Mazzoli can be part of a refreshed repertoire.New York PhilharmonicThis program continues through Saturday at Alice Tully Hall, Manhattan; nyphil.org. More

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      Review: Schumann at the Philharmonic. Robert, Too.

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      With a debuting pianist and conductor, a solo by Clara Schumann preceded works by her husband and Brahms.Hasn’t the New York Philharmonic been through enough? Closed for a year and a half by the pandemic, and exiled from its home for renovations during its return season, the orchestra is now at the mercy of visa delays.Caused by backlogs and staff shortages at embassies and consulates around the world, these delays are plaguing a classical field that depends on the easy travel of musicians from abroad. They kept the Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes from coming here this week to play; and if one cancellation wasn’t enough, the planned conductor, Jaap van Zweden, the Philharmonic’s music director, also withdrew, because of a family medical emergency.But when the dust settled, this left an enjoyable double debut with the orchestra at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center on Thursday: the pianist Alessio Bax and the conductor Giancarlo Guerrero.There was a quiet milestone in the program, which was retained with the new performers. While Robert Schumann’s works are fixtures of the repertory, those of his wife, Clara, an accomplished composer and one of the great piano virtuosos of the 19th century, are decidedly not. So when Bax entered and began Clara Schumann’s brief but eloquently wistful Romance in A minor, it was the first time her music was being played for a Philharmonic subscription audience.Its subdued ending led, without pause, to the dramatic burst that begins another work in A minor: Robert Schumann’s war horse piano concerto. Bax, well known to New York audiences in chamber music over the past decade, started with a tone of pristine Classicism that swiftly dissolved into washes of dreamier mistiness, without ever losing clarity.With the strings often evocatively gauzy, wind solos slicing piquantly through the textures, he and Guerrero conveyed the work’s mercurial swerves of mood without affectation or exaggeration. The lyrical effusions of the second movement were answered with crisp changeability; the finale had a surreally martial undercurrent. The performance was suavely manic, as it should be.It was a progressive move, yes, to bring the Schumanns together. Next it would be wonderful to hear Clara’s piano concerto — also, as it happens, in A minor — from the Philharmonic; Isata Kanneh-Mason, among others, has recorded it to impressive effect.Critics often valorize concert programs that sprawl across time. But the Philharmonic did well to pair the Schumanns with their great friend Johannes Brahms for a tightly focused evening of works written in the 1840s and ’50s. And not one of his frequently played symphonies — the First comes to the Philharmonic next month — but the second of his earlier, rarer pair of serenades.Brahms wrote these works as he was still experimenting with composing for orchestra; revised in the mid-1870s, the score of the 30-minute Serenade No. 2 lacks violins, for a melancholy tinge to the general geniality. Guerrero — the music director of the Nashville Symphony and a grinning presence with expressive fingers and a shiny suit — led a subtly energetic performance, bringing out both the delicacy and the darkness in the third movement and the Schubertian wistfulness in the fourth.Vivid yet unexaggerated, just like in the Schumann concerto, the playing had the intimate warmth that the orchestra also brought to Haydn’s “Oxford” Symphony in the same space a few weeks ago. It speaks to how successfully the Philharmonic is scaling down to the 1,200-seat Rose Theater, and to two auspicious debuts.New York PhilharmonicThis program continues through Saturday at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Manhattan; nyphil.org. More

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      Review: The Philharmonic Tries Out Another Temporary Home

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      After opening its season at Alice Tully Hall, the orchestra found more congenial surroundings at the Rose Theater.Maybe it was the surge of adrenaline that the New York Philharmonic felt at finally returning to live concerts at Lincoln Center after a year and a half. Maybe sizing down symphonic power for a temporary venue — Alice Tully Hall, with just over a third of the seats of the orchestra’s usual theater across the street — was a work in progress on opening night.Whatever the reason, the Philharmonic’s clenched, loud performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 last week left me jangled and headachy. From my seat close to the action — maybe that was part of the problem, too — the performance seemed in line with the worst impulses of Jaap van Zweden, the orchestra’s music director, who announced just before the season that he would leave his post in 2024.That bullied, blatant Beethoven swept up even a normally suave soloist, Daniil Trifonov, who huffed and pounded. It didn’t bode well for the remainder of this season, much of which will be held at Tully as the Philharmonic’s home, David Geffen Hall, undergoes renovations.Not so fast. On Thursday — the orchestra’s nerves perhaps settled, and now at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center, another temporary home much smaller than Geffen, but airier in feel than Tully — a different Beethoven piano concerto, the Third, was superb.Yes, I know: Another week, another Beethoven concerto. But it’s slightly easier to forgive unimaginative programming when the performance is as spirited and full-bodied as it was with Yefim Bronfman as soloist.Beloved by this orchestra, particularly in this composer, Bronfman built imperceptibly through the first movement to organ-like grandeur in his cadenza. Then his tone receded into pearly dreaminess before ending in a shivery trill. His serene poise at the start of the Largo (later recalled in his encore, Chopin’s Nocturne No. 8 in D flat) was matched by silky strings. The Rondo finale had dash all around, but Bronfman never seemed to be putting phrases in italics or boldface; this was easygoing playing, in the best sense.The concerto followed Hannah Kendall’s “Kanashibari” (2013), which has a few ethereal moments before falling into a long stretch of John Adams-esque chugging strings and brassy fanfares, with the odd slap of wood. But the orchestra played it with focus and polish.Opening with a contemporary work of seven or eight minutes that’s swamped by the subsequent hour of Beethoven and Haydn, the program was in the classic mode of an ensemble that’s profoundly cautious yet wants to appear progressive.A slight complication is that while Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto is frequent fodder for the Philharmonic, Haydn’s Symphony No. 92 in G (“Oxford”) isn’t. It’s standard repertory, sure, but not for this orchestra, which until trying it out this summer hadn’t played it in almost 20 years.Van Zweden leading Haydn’s Symphony No. 92 in G (“Oxford”).Hiroyuki Ito for The New York TimesIt made you, as performances of his symphonies often do, want to hear them all the time. Particularly when they gleam like the “Oxford” did on Thursday, the phrases at the start sculpted but not overly managed. Perhaps, going for crispness, van Zweden occasionally erred on the side of curtness, and the final movement sometimes tipped into feeling more driven than witty. But the playing was largely rich and good-humored: balanced and gentle in the second movement, then graceful and patient, and with even a hint of mystery, in the third.Based on first impressions, it seems that, of the Philharmonic’s two main residences this season, the intimate yet spacious Rose Theater might give the orchestra and its sound more room to breathe.New York PhilharmonicProgram repeats Friday and Saturday at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Manhattan; nyphil.org. More

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      Classical Music Looks Ahead to a Fall in Flux

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      How will performances feel in the midst of pandemic regulations? Will institutions respond in actions, not just words, to calls for racial equity?Normally, when I look ahead to a new season, I have a pretty good idea of what the performances will be like.But it goes without saying that this is not a normal time. So even with usually sure bets — a new piece by a composer who has excited me in the past; recitals by performers I cherish; great casts in operas old and recent — it’s hard to know what the performances this fall will feel like. The very experience of gathering in concert halls is in flux with the lingering challenges of the pandemic.It looks as if vaccine mandates for audience members will be routine; I’m with those who see this move as the only way to make performances feel safe. But will masks be required or optional? Will there be full capacity, or some spacing in the audience? Will children be allowed, even if they’re still unvaccinated?And even with precautions, will audiences — especially ones that tend to be older, like those for many orchestras and opera companies — feel safe enough to come back? Will musicians gathered together on stages and in cramped pits convey confidence?Again, what will it feel like?And other crucial issues loom. Just months into the pandemic, when nationwide protests against racial injustice broke out after the killing of George Floyd, classical music was forced to grapple anew with questions of relevance, diversity and inclusion. One major institution after another issued statements condemning discrimination and pledging to do better at connecting with the diverse people they serve. Will these words be reflected in policies and programs?The Metropolitan Opera is speaking to the moment while addressing a gaping hole in its history. It will open its return season with “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” by the composer Terence Blanchard and the librettist Kasi Lemmons, based on a memoir by the New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow about growing up poor and Black in rural Louisiana. This will, shockingly, be the first opera by a Black composer to be presented by the company since its founding in 1883.In this case, I know what to expect, having reviewed the work’s 2019 premiere at Opera Theater of St. Louis, and can eagerly recommend this musically original, dramatically affecting and wrenchingly personal opera. Blanchard, a jazz trumpeter who has written acclaimed film scores, describes “Fire” not as a jazz opera, but as an opera in jazz. What he means, I think, is that jazz naturally permeates his compositional voice, but his score is symphonic — subtle, intricate, complex — taking an essentially traditional approach to opera as drama, with some inventive strokes.The Met’s vaccination policy means that it will not allow children under 12, which might threaten its holiday presentation of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe Met is requiring proof of vaccination from everyone in the audience, and will not allow children under 12, since they are not yet eligible for the vaccines. Will this affect the company’s abridged, English-language version of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” this holiday season? The production typically attracts lots of parents with children. The company’s website says that, should young children be able to be vaccinated this fall, they will of course be welcome. If not, it would seem untenable for the Met to go forward with a family-friendly entertainment in December.Nagging concerns like these — along with the threat of cancellations because of virus outbreaks — may well linger in all the performing arts..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}As for the New York Philharmonic, this season it will not have access to David Geffen Hall, which is in the midst of an extensive, long-awaited renovation. The orchestra will perform mostly at Alice Tully Hall, the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall.Some intriguing programs reveal serious attempts to bring in composers from underrepresented groups and to showcase exciting younger artists, without neglecting the core repertory. Dalia Stasevska will lead a program (Oct. 20-23) featuring works by Missy Mazzoli, John Adams and, of special interest, Anthony Davis, the winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his opera “The Central Park Five.” Davis’s “You Have the Right to Remain Silent,” a clarinet concerto written in 2007 and revised four years later, is its composer’s autobiographical depiction of an encounter with the police, and is therefore more timely than ever. Anthony McGill, the Philharmonic’s superb principal clarinetist (and the orchestra’s only Black player) is the soloist.Earlier in the month (Oct. 14-16), the Philharmonic’s music director, Jaap van Zweden, leads a seemingly more traditional program — but with a twist that shows the subtle ways in which concerns about racial and gender representation are affecting the concert experience. At the Rose Theater — more intimate than Geffen Hall — Leif Ove Andsnes will play Robert Schumann’s beloved Piano Concerto, but will open the concert with Clara Schumann’s solo Romance in A Minor, a nod to a composer slowly getting her long-belated due.Jaap van Zweden, the New York Philharmonic’s music director, will lead the orchestra at different venues as David Geffen Hall is closed for renovations.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesYou might have thought that a powerhouse institution like Carnegie Hall would want to come roaring back. It says much about this still-dicey moment for classical music, in terms of both financial and public health, that the hall is pacing itself and keeping its fall season relatively light. Its opening night on Oct. 6 offers Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who leads the Metropolitan Opera and the Philadelphia Orchestra, in a program that attempts to be both a gala celebration and a statement of purpose.The program, featuring the Philadelphians, opens with Valerie Coleman’s new “Seven O’Clock Shout,” written during the pandemic, followed by Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2, with the dazzling Yuja Wang as soloist. Next comes that gala standard, Bernstein’s Overture to “Candide.” The Iranian-Canadian composer Iman Habibi’s “Jeder Baum spricht” (2019), commissioned by the orchestra for Beethoven’s 250th anniversary last year, was written in dialogue with Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth symphonies. Here it will lead into an account of Beethoven’s Fifth, setting off a full Beethoven symphony cycle with Nézet-Séguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra, originally planned for last year.These classic symphonies will be interspersed with contemporary pieces — which, though not a novel idea, is a good one. It feels all too familiar for a complete Beethoven symphony cycle to dominate Carnegie’s season.But will it in practice? It may well be that for some time yet, hearing even standard works played beautifully will feel restorative, almost miraculous.Yet given the crises we have endured and the urgent challenges that remain, I hope my wish wins out that institutions try harder to connect and engage, to foster living composers and new generations of artists. I’ve long believed that many classical ensembles, especially major orchestras, spend too much time thinking about how they play and not enough about what they play and why they play it. We all love the standard repertory. But an ensemble puts more on the line and fosters classical music as a living art form when it presents a new piece, champions a neglected older work or takes a risk with unconventional programming.These things have always mattered crucially in my thinking — now, more than ever. If this results in what some may see as grading on a curve — by giving extra credit, in a sense, to artists who reach out and take risks — so be it. The status quo will no longer suffice. More

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      A Starry Central Park Comeback Concert Is Silenced by Lightning

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      An all-star show to celebrate the city’s emergence after the hardships of the pandemic, even as the spread of the Delta variant has driven up cases again, was stopped halfway through.It was supposed to be a glorious celebration of the re-emergence of New York City after more than a year of pandemic hardship — a concert bringing thousands of vaccinated fans on Saturday evening to the Great Lawn of Central Park to hear an all-star lineup.And for the first couple of hours it was, with messages of New York’s resilience sandwiched between performances by the New York Philharmonic, Jennifer Hudson, Carlos Santana, LL Cool J, and Earth, Wind and Fire, among others.But shortly after 7:30 p.m., as Barry Manilow was performing “Can’t Smile Without You,” lightning brought the concert to a halt. “Please seek shelter for your safety,” an announcer intoned, stopping the music, as people began filing out of the park.The concert had begun with a ray of sunshine, breaking through the clouds just before it got underway at 5 p.m. Gayle King, a co-host of “CBS This Morning,” began the evening by thanking the essential workers who had pulled the city through the darkest days of the pandemic.“We were once the epicenter of this virus, and now we’ve moved to being the epicenter of the recovery,” she said. “We gather for a common purpose: to say, ‘Welcome back, New York City!’”She then introduced the New York Philharmonic, which kicked off the concert with the overture to Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide,” conducted by Marin Alsop, a Bernstein protégée. The orchestra then played a medley of New York-themed music, including bits of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind” and “Theme from ‘New York, New York,’” the anthem made famous by Frank Sinatra, among others.The concert, “We Love NYC: The Homecoming Concert,” which was broadcast live on CNN, was part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plans to celebrate the city’s comeback after the pain and suffering of the pandemic.When the concert was announced by Mr. de Blasio in June, plunging coronavirus case numbers and rising vaccination figures had filled the city with hope.But circumstances have shifted considerably over the past two months. The spread of the highly contagious Delta variant has led some city businesses to postpone the return to their offices, prompted the city to institute vaccine mandates for indoor dining and entertainment and threatened to destabilize the wider concert business.On June 7, the day the concert was announced, the city was averaging 242 cases a day; the daily average is now more than 2,000 cases a day.With the Philharmonic still onstage, the concert continued with Andrea Bocelli, the star Italian tenor, singing “O Sole Mio,” and Jennifer Hudson, the star of the new Aretha Franklin biopic “Respect,” singing Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma” — a beloved aria that became associated with Franklin after she sang it at the Grammy Awards in 1998.As the crowd streamed in, the idea of New York’s return — whether a two-fisted vanquishing of a viral enemy or a premature declaration of victory — was on seemingly everyone’s mind.“This is our reopening — this is our invitation to get back to real life,” said Dean Dunagan, 52, of the Lower East Side, who had come to see Mr. Springsteen and had been waiting outside the park for four and a half hours before the gates were opened.“New York has been punched in the face every other decade, or whatever,” Mr. Dunagan said, “and we get right back up.”Just a few feet from him was Alexandra Gudaitis, a 24-year-old Paul Simon fan from the Upper West Side. “I’m scared this is going to be a mass spreader event, with the Delta,” she said.Still, she was one of the first fans through the door and rushed to the very front of the general-admission section with a few friends. They wore masks, and Ms. Gudaitis said they had chosen their spot because it seemed to have better access to fresh air.Some of the acts had only tenuous connections to New York. But the rap pioneer LL Cool J led a New York-centric ode to old-school hip-hop with Busta Rhymes, A Boogie Wit da Hoodie, French Montana, Melle Mel and Rev. Run of Run-DMC.Amid concerns about the spread of the Delta variant, the show required everyone 12 years old and older to show proof that they had had at least one dose of a vaccine. Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York TimesThe homecoming show required everyone 12 years old and up to show proof that they had had at least one dose of a vaccine; children younger than that, who are still ineligible for the vaccines, were required to wear masks.“When it comes to the concerts, they are outdoors — they are for vaccinated folks only,” the mayor had said on Wednesday. “We are definitely encouraging mask use. But I really want to emphasize the whole key here is vaccination.”The Central Park show came after the city had hosted a week of free hip-hop shows, with local heroes including Raekwon and Ghostface Killah in Staten Island, and KRS-One, Kool Moe Dee and Slick Rick in the Bronx. Tickets were required to attend the concert on the Great Lawn — most were free, but V.I.P. packages cost up to $5,000 — and the show was broadcast on television by CNN and on satellite radio by SiriusXM.The concert was programmed by Clive Davis, the 89-year-old music eminence, who, in an interview this week, stressed the role that music could play in shaping society.“It’s vital and important that New York be back,” he said.From the stage on Saturday night, Mr. Davis, a Brooklyn native, made a plea to the audience: “Tonight, I only ask one thing: When you’re having a great time, cheer loud — loud enough so they can hear you all the way in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights.”The concert ended before many of the headliners, including Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon, got to perform. Mr. Davis said in the interview that after Mr. de Blasio asked him in May to put together the show, his first call had been to Mr. Springsteen.“I picked up the phone and told him we were going to celebrate New York City,” Mr. Davis recalled. “He said he would show up and wanted to do a duet.” That duet was to have been with Patti Smith, on “Because the Night,” a 1978 song they wrote together.The abbreviated concert came at an uncertain moment for the music industry. While some high-profile artists, including Garth Brooks, BTS and Nine Inch Nails, have canceled tour dates recently, the show is largely going on in the live-music business — but it hasn’t been easy. Concert protocols, in New York and elsewhere, have been in flux for months, as the federal authorities, local governments and businesses have adjusted to the changing realities of the virus.Broadway is requiring masks and proof of vaccinations as its theaters reopen, and Los Angeles County recently announced that it would require masks at large outdoor events such as baseball games at Dodger Stadium and concerts at the Hollywood Bowl.Mr. de Blasio has defended going ahead with the concert, noting that it was being held outdoors and for vaccinated people, even as some other events have been canceled. This year’s West Indian American Day parade in Brooklyn, for example, planned for Labor Day Weekend, has been canceled.The eyes of the concert industry have been on Chicago, where the Lollapalooza festival drew 400,000 over four days in late July and early August, amid concerns that it could turn into a “superspreader” event. The festival, which was held outdoors, required that attendees show proof of vaccination or a negative test. Last week, the city said that 203 people attending the show had tested positive afterward and that no hospitalizations or deaths had been reported. More

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      Renovating Its Hall, New York Philharmonic Plans a Roving Season

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      With David Geffen Hall under construction, the orchestra will spend most of 2021-22 at two other Lincoln Center venues.For any major music ensemble, planning a season of concerts as a pandemic stretches on is daunting. For the New York Philharmonic, there is an added challenge: The orchestra’s home, David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, is in the midst of a $550 million renovation.That will leave the orchestra roving for the next year as it tries to recover from the pandemic, which resulted in the cancellation of its 2020-21 season and the loss of more than $21 million in ticket revenue, forcing painful budget cuts.But the Philharmonic won’t travel too far. On Tuesday, it announced its 2021-22 season: a slate of about 80 concerts, compared to 120 in a normal year, spent mostly at two other Lincoln Center venues, Alice Tully Hall and the Rose Theater, with four forays to Carnegie Hall and a holiday run of “Messiah” at Riverside Church.“People are starved for live entertainment,” Deborah Borda, the Philharmonic’s president and chief executive, said in an interview. “There may be some slight hesitancy at the beginning, but I think people are going to come flocking back.”The season opens Sept. 17 with the pianist Daniil Trifonov playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 at Tully. Other prominent artists on the schedule include the pianists Yuja Wang and Leif Ove Andsnes; the violinists Hilary Hahn and Joshua Bell; the saxophonist Branford Marsalis, who will play a concerto by John Adams; and the conductor Gustavo Dudamel, who will lead Schumann’s four symphonies and two world premieres over two weeks in March. The Philharmonic’s principal clarinetist, Anthony McGill, will be featured in Anthony Davis’s “You Have the Right to Remain Silent.”Soloists appearing for the first time with the orchestra include the cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, who will play Dvorak’s concerto and also participate in a Young People’s Concert; the soprano Golda Schultz; the pianist Beatrice Rana; and the conductors Jeannette Sorrell and Dalia Stasevska.In its fourth year with the conductor Jaap van Zweden as its music director, the Philharmonic will also premiere a variety of works, including by the American composers Joan Tower and Sarah Kirkland Snider. Those two premieres are part of Project 19, a multiyear initiative to commission works from 19 female composers to honor the centenary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which barred the states from denying women the right to vote.A few of the concerts will be at an unusual time: The orchestra will present three Sunday matinees, the first time it has done that since the 1960s, in an effort to broaden its audience.The Philharmonic has been at the center of the recent revival of the arts in New York. The orchestra appeared at the Shed in April, its first indoor concert in 13 months. And it performed at Bryant Park last week, the first time its musicians had played together without masks since the start of the pandemic.The orchestra is taking precautions in its planning to ease fears about the virus. There will be no intermissions at least through December, to prevent crowds from gathering. Borda said the orchestra would follow guidance from the state and federal authorities in deciding other public health measures, like requiring masks or proof of vaccination.“What it will be like in September is anybody’s guess,” Borda said. “We have to remain flexible.”The Philharmonic had to make a series of painful cuts as more than 100 of its concerts were canceled. The orchestra reduced its administrative staff by about 40 percent, largely through layoffs. In December, its musicians agreed to a four-year contract that included a 25 percent cut to the players’ base pay through August 2023, with compensation gradually increasing after that, though remaining below prepandemic levels.There were some bright spots amid the turmoil. Donations increased 11 percent last year, totaling $31.5 million. The orchestra also worked to deepen its connections with city residents through two series of Bandwagon concerts, bringing first a pickup truck and then a 20-foot shipping container with a foldout stage to neighborhoods across the city, and giving local artists an opportunity to perform.Several of the organizations that took part in Bandwagon concerts, including National Black Theater, a nonprofit arts group in Harlem, and El Puente, a social justice organization in Brooklyn, will be featured in the 2021-22 season. Those collaborations will be organized by Anthony Roth Costanzo, a countertenor who produced the Bandwagon series and is also the orchestra’s artist-in-residence next season; he has also helped prepare a two-week festival focusing on identity, “Authentic Selves: The Beauty Within.”The coming season will be the first time in recent decades that the orchestra has not had access to its own hall. Its administration and Lincoln Center decided to use the shutdown to accelerate the renovation of Geffen Hall, which is set to reopen in the fall of 2022, a year and a half earlier than planned. The hall will feature state-of-the-art acoustics and a more intimate feel, with seats that wrap around the stage.Borda said much of the coming season would be devoted to preparing for the orchestra’s return to Geffen.“This hall provides an opportunity to transform ourselves,” she said, “but also to paint on an even larger palette.” More

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      Tania León Wins Music Pulitzer for ‘Stride’

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      The New York Philharmonic premiered the work, both solemn and celebratory, in February 2020.In the 1990s, the composer Tania León was named a new-music adviser to the New York Philharmonic. But the orchestra did not play any of her work back then.It made up for lost time in February 2020, when the Philharmonic premiered Ms. León’s “Stride,” a work both solemn and celebratory, as part of its Project 19 initiative, for which it commissioned 19 female composers to honor the centennial of the 19th Amendment, which barred the states from denying women the right to vote.On Friday “Stride” was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music. It is a culminating honor in the career of a composer, now 78, who grew up in Cuba; found a footing writing percussive dance works in New York; created a series of memorable orchestral pieces shot through with intricate Latin rhythmic grooves; and became an outspoken advocate for cultural diversity in music. She has also been a pathbreaking conductor, and currently directs the wide-ranging festival Composers Now.Ms. León, who found out about the prize as she left her dentist’s office on Friday, said she started crying at the news. “My mother and my grandmother were maids when they were 8-year-olds,” she said in a phone interview. “My family had so much hope for me and the new generation, to give us an education, and when something major has happened in my life, that’s the first thing that comes to mind.”Inspired by the courage of the women in her family, and by the suffragist Susan B. Anthony, the 15-minute “Stride” isn’t purely optimistic. Forthright brass fanfares recur throughout the piece, a kind of periodic annunciation, and jazzy wind solos squiggle out of the orchestral textures, but a dark, unsettled energy always lurks.The composer Ellen Reid, who won the Pulitzer in 2019 and was part of the committee that awarded this year’s prize, said she had heard the Philharmonic perform “Stride” at Lincoln Center last year.“It was one of the last performances before the pandemic,” she said by phone. “Tania has a way of weaving together so many musical traditions with such joy. She’s just such a wonderful ambassador for music, and her love is infectious.”Explosive bells sound at the end of the piece: “Every time I think about it,” Ms. León said, “I want to hear even more — all the bells in the nation.” But a West African beat shuffles underneath — a reminder that Black women were initially excluded from the right that was granted by the 19th Amendment.“Under all these bells of celebration,” Ms. León said, “there is still a kind of struggle.”Struggle, and movement.“It’s very nice to be recognized,” she added. “But the biggest prize of my life is that I’ve been able to manifest a dream that started in a very small place, far from here, with people who are not here any more. That, for me, is what ‘Stride’ is about: moving forward.”Joshua Barone contributed reporting. More