New York Philharmonic Go "On the Town" & More at Lincoln Center
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 04 February 2026 14:46
- Written by Jack Angstreich
Conductor Gustavo Gimeno & soloist Hélène Grimaud. Photo by Brandon Patoc
At Lincoln Center’s wonderful David Geffen Hall, on the evening of Thursday, December 4th, 2025, I had the privilege to attend a fine concert presented by the New York Philharmonic under the admirable direction of Gustavo Gimeno, in his debut performances with this ensemble.
The event started promisingly with a pleasurable account of Leonard Bernstein’s delightful, inventively scored Three Dance Episodes from On the Town, his 1944 musical created in collaboration with choreographer Jerome Robbins and librettists Betty Comden and Adolph Green. The composer’s own comment on this suite is as follows:
The story of On the Town is concerned with three sailors on 24-hour leave in New York, and their adventures with the monstrous city which its inhabitants take so for granted.
Dance of the Great Lover: Gabey, the romantic sailor in search of the glamorous Miss Turnstiles, falls asleep on the subway and dreams of his prowess in sweeping Miss Turnstiles off her feet.
Pas de deux: Gabey watches a scene, both tender and sinister, in which a sensitive high school girl in Central Park is lured and then cast off by a worldly sailor.
Times Square Ballet: A more panoramic sequence in which all the sailors in New York congregate in Times Square for their night of fun. There is communal dancing, a scene in a souvenir arcade, a scene in the Roseland Dance Palace. Cuts have been made in this music of those sections relating directly to the plot action.
An impressive soloist, Hélène Grimaud, then entered the stage to provide an accomplished rendition of George Gershwin’s enjoyable Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra, from 1925. About it, the composer later said:
Many persons had thought that the Rhapsody was only a happy accident. Well, I went out, for one thing, to show them that there was plenty more where that had come from. I made up my mind to do a piece of absolute music. The Rhapsody, as its title implies, was a blues impression. The concerto would be unrelated to any program. And that is exactly how I wrote it.
Before the work’s premiere, Gershwin offered this description of it in the New York Herald Tribune:
The first movement employs the Charleston rhythm. It is quick and pulsating, representing the young enthusiastic spirit of American life. It begins with a rhythmic motif given out by the kettledrums, supported by other percussion instruments, and with a Charleston motif introduced by … horns, clarinets and violas. The principal theme is announced by the bassoon. Later, a second theme is introduced by the piano.
The second movement has a poetic nocturnal atmosphere which has come to be referred to as the American blues, but in a purer form than that in which they are usually treated.
The final movement reverts to the style of the first. It is an orgy of rhythms, starting violently and keeping to the same pace throughout.
The initial Allegro begins excitingly; with the entry of the piano, the music turns inward if still virtuosic but interrupted periodically by showier measures replete with popular dance rhythms—it ends emphatically. The ensuing slow movement is meditative and lyrical at first and on the whole but then more celebratory, if quietly so; it concludes gently. The finale, marked Allegro agitato, is dynamic and propulsive and ends thrillingly.
The second half of the evening was even stronger: a satisfying realization of Antonín Dvořak’s marvelous Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95, From the New World, completed in 1893. The first movement’s Adagio introduction is somewhat suspenseful; its Allegro molto main body is stirring and melodious, finishing forcefully. The succeeding, song-like Largo has a quasi-pastoral ethos, although a faster middle section has greater urgency; it ends very softly if joyfully. The third movement, marked Molto vivace, is more turbulent, with driving rhythms and contrasting sections that are more leisurely in pace and evocative of the American West; it closes abruptly. The Allegro con fuoco finale is exhilarating and exultant—there are Wagnerian passages and some more subdued moments—and it builds to a triumphant conclusion.
The artists deservedly received a standing ovation.