Manfred Honeck and the New York Philharmonic play it safe in Braunfels, Grieg and Beethoven

The Vienna Philharmonic, whose annual New Year’s Day performances of Johann Strauss are broadcast to some 50 million viewers worldwide, apparently aren’t the only ones giving themselves a pass on creative programming around the holidays. The New York Philharmonic and guest conductor Manfred Honeck eased gently into 2013 this weekend with an evening of audience favorites.

After opening with a vapid novelty, Walter Braunfels’ suite from Fantastic Apparitions on a Theme by Berlioz, pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet gave a thankfully unsentimental reading of the Grieg Concerto in A minor, and Beethoven’s Symphony no. 7 rounded off this unadventurous program. The Grieg and Beethoven were played capably, but overall this evening came off as a cautious attempt to please listeners assumed to be more conservative in taste than they really are, and the Philharmonic’s playing at times mirrored this ambivalence.

Friday’s concert was the second of three performances this weekend, and perhaps the musicians had been more energized for the opening concert of the calendar year. But this evening, everyone seemed still to be in holiday mode, absent-minded as they made their way through the Braunfels suite. This post-Romantic rarity needed a far better performance than it got on Friday; much of the work’s impact relies on flashy string passagework and subtle coloring, neither of which Mr Honeck was able to draw from the orchestra. Maestro Honeck – currently music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra – was assertive and passionate in his New York Philharmonic debut, but for whatever reason his enthusiasm had little effect on the Braunfels. Perhaps the prospect of a full weekend playing two pieces (Grieg and Beethoven) that had been programmed in the past ten months accounted for their being in this daze.

With Grieg’s Piano Concerto slated to follow, the first half of the concert had the potential to become an insufferably schmaltz-laden affair, but Mr Thibaudet’s vigor helped to breathe life into the orchestra and salvage the evening. He treated melodies with a straightforward declamation, save for one effective indulgence in allowing the second and fourth bars of the first movement’s main theme to trail off, inflecting this assertive and lyrical opening with a tinge of self-doubt. Under Mr Thibaudet’s hands, virtuoso runs were impetuous and fluid, even rushed, stripped of any real significance to reveal the underlying structure of the work. It was in the second thematic area of the first movement, and especially in the second movement, that Mr Honeck finally brought forth finer playing from the orchestra. As happened later in the Beethoven symphony, his insistence on soft colors and dynamics that crept on tiptoe seemed to inspire the orchestra more than any of the extroversion on display (visually, on Mr Honeck’s part) in the Braunfels.

A large contingent in the audience must have shown up strictly to hear Mr Thibaudet, as many in the previously full house left during intermission. It was their loss, as Beethoven’s Seventh had the orchestra firing on all cylinders, and was the highlight of the concert. Mr Honeck directed an unaffected, earthy take on this symphony, and it was a delight to watch him treat the orchestra as a truly Classical chamber ensemble in some of the self-perpetuating fast passages, ceasing to beat time aside from significant cues and expressive indications. As he had done in the Grieg, Mr Honeck thrust both orchestra and audience into the last movement without pause. In addition to precluding inter-movement coughs on an evening when the entire audience seemed to have swallowed troubling quantities of dust, this gesture virtually grabbed listeners by their collars to induce a visceral reaction to Beethoven’s Allegro con brio finale, taken here at a bracing clip.

I love Beethoven; Grieg and I have our occasional misgivings, although I hold his Piano Concerto in high regard; and I enjoyed what I could of this performance of the Braunfels suite. But the marking of a New Year is a reminder of the passage of time, the accumulation of ever more human artistic output, the imperative to move continually forward or else lose all relevance. I’d gladly hear a symphonic performance of conservative repertoire staples rather than a half-hearted, token nod (if that’s all it is) to contemporary trends. However, for even part of such an unimaginative program to fall flat in its execution risks exposing our arts institutions to the criticisms of being out of touch, reactionary, or mere relics. The year 2013 will no doubt see a dizzying number of Verdi and Wagner performances in honor of their bicentennials; we would do well to remember, too, that momentous première halfway between then and now, of Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps in 1913, and to consider how best to honor such a legacy.