Anthony Tommasini, writing in today’s New York Times, is as bemused as I am by the hand-wringing from the players of the New York Philharmonic on not getting Riccardo Muti as their new music director:
… after the recent news from Chicago, miffed Philharmonic players wrung their hands and stumbled over one another in expressing regrets. “It’s like somebody going out with your best friend and marrying them,” one said. “I don’t know what Chicago has that we don’t have,” said another, who worried that the Philharmonic’s wooing of Mr. Muti had not been ardent enough.
It was left to Mr. Mehta to shift into damage-control mode and reaffirm the Philharmonic’s utter faith in Mr. Gilbert. “We just see an extraordinary future with Alan,” Mr. Mehta said. “The orchestra and I are absolutely convinced that this is not only the right thing, but a brilliant move.”
He lays out a good case for why music director designate Alan Gilbert is the best choice for music director in New York, and why Muti would not be. And he ends this way:
Mr. Gilbert has excelled on the Philharmonic podium. In a recent program he demonstrated equal command conducting the premiere of a fitful symphony by the American composer Marc Neikrug and an exhilarating account of Strauss’s “Heldenleben.†A natural communicator, he should be able to connect easily with young audiences and energize the atmosphere at the Philharmonic, much as Esa-Pekka Salonen and Michael Tilson Thomas have done in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Some Chicago critics are gloating that their city is now the envy of the orchestra world. Hmm. Los Angeles music lovers are excited that Gustavo Dudamel is taking over their Philharmonic.
And Mr. Muti would have been all wrong for New York. I, for one, could not be more hopeful about Mr. Gilbert’s potential. But I thought that the Philharmonic players all would have shared my enthusiasm.