In Thursday’s (10/7) Wall Street Journal, David Mermelstein writes, “Alan Gilbert’s arrival as music director of the New York Philharmonic last season engendered many changes at the orchestra, among them the resurrection of the long-defunct post of composer-in-residence. Mr. Gilbert chose for the job the Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg … ‘The whole concept of bringing back composers to be involved with the big orchestras is something I’m really happy to see,’ Mr. Lindberg said in mostly fluent English by phone last week. ‘We need living composers around for now and for the future. I love the Brahms symphonies, so don’t get me wrong: I don’t want to push them out. But to have them together with music from our time makes even more sense.’ Audiences will have a chance to see that philosophy in action Thursday, when Mr. Gilbert conducts the Philharmonic in a performance of Mr. Lindberg’s breakthrough work, ‘Kraft,’ on a bill with Debussy’s ‘Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun’ and Sibelius’s Violin Concerto, with Joshua Bell as soloist. The concert, which will be repeated on Friday and again next Tuesday, marks this massive work’s first indoor performance in the U.S.”
Posted October 8, 2010
