MUSIC

Ligeti: Piano Concerto

THURSDAY – SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2 – 4, 2023
7:30 PM THURSDAY
2:00 PM FRIDAY
8:00 PM SATURDAY

New York Philharmonic
David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center
10 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan

$69-$235
TICKETS + INFORMATION

I’ll say it: Ligeti’s Piano Concerto is the best of the second half of the 20th Century (by which I mean my favorite duh). This is Ligeti’s break with Modernism, writing music that’s fun and polyrhythmic, explicitly drawing on African approaches. You just can’t hear it enough (and you certainly don’t hear it enough) (if this were played as much as, say, the Liszt Piano Concerti the world would be a better place). Pierre-Laurent Aimard has shown himself to be a sterling exponent of the solo part; and Susanna Mälkki, who gets great results from this orchestra, is exactly who you’d want to hear leading it (might I express disappointment that she isn’t the incoming Music Director?). Also worth hearing on the program: Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances and, just for fun, Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 as a curtain-raiser. (I don’t see what’s so Hungarian about the closing Pictures at an Exhibition, but I guess they thought they had to have something to pull in the crowds.) (NB: The power move is to go Saturday and then get in — if you can — to Aimard’s Nightcap afterward.)

MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Long-standing neighborhood French at Le Boite en Bois.