Review: Honeck conducts Beethoven's 7th again in NY. Was it too soon?

By Zachary Woolfe / ©The New York Times

NEW YORK CITY — A risk of programming standard repertory works over and over is that an orchestra is practically begging to be compared with its own recent performances — not to mention a huge and ever-growing body of recordings.

Why should someone buy a ticket to a concert if they just heard the same group do the same piece, or if they can stay home and listen to dozens of masterly versions online? 

That question came to mind Friday, when the New York Philharmonic played Ludwig van Beethoven's Seventh Symphony at David Geffen Hall, conducted by Manfred Honeck. Just over a year and a half ago, the ensemble did Beethoven's Seventh at Geffen under Esa-Pekka Salonen — a stirring rendition that balanced accented force and long-lined legato into a propulsive, joyful whole.

If the work came around every five or 10 years, it would be easier to judge each arrival in a vacuum. But the Philharmonic's choice to perform it again so soon — its programming this season is particularly uninspired — meant that Friday's concert,  was inevitably going to be held up against the last one.

Honeck, who led without a score, is experienced in Beethoven's classic; his 2015 recording with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, of which he is the longtime music director, is one of the finest in a crowded field. But under his baton, the Philharmonic didn't come close to matching its February 2023 self, let alone Pittsburgh's rich, vigorous example.

In the first movement, Honeck lingered over pastoral passages, perhaps to try and provide respite from — and intensification of — the relentlessly rhythmic surrounding music. But the orchestra negotiated these transitions of speed and atmosphere in a way that was stiff, not agile.

An unusually drawn-out tempo in the third movement's contrasting Trio section could have conveyed wistful longing if the Philharmonic had fuller, creamier tone, but as it was the orchestra just seemed strained by the slowness.

Honeck always approaches standards like this with fresh ideas. He presented the second movement as a hushed hymn rather than the traditional sturdy dirge, a choice that elicited extraordinarily soft, silky sound from a group that generally doesn't like to whisper.

But the exuberance of the finale emerges from confident precision, and on Friday it was taken so quickly that the mood was harried rather than elated, sorely testing flute and oboe playing that was undistinguished throughout the symphony.

In Johannes Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1 after intermission, with Vikingur Olafsson as soloist, the ensemble was on steadier ground, though the violins, tending anemic, struggled for that slicing heat that gives this composer's works their irresistible vitality.

Like the Beethoven, this was an all-too-quick return to the orchestra's lineup: The Philharmonic last performed the piece a little over two years ago with Igor Levit. (If you needed another reason to stay home, Levit has just released a magisterial version with Christian Thielemann and the Vienna Philharmonic.)

Olafsson is better known for music of the baroque, classical and modern eras than for heavier romantic warhorses like the Brahms; his Philharmonic debut two years ago was with Maurice Ravel, and his encores on Friday were Jean-Philippe Rameau. Keeping to form, he played this tumultuous concerto with unlikely lightness and delicacy.

It was an intriguing take, poetic and pearly. It also stinted some of the weight and ferocity of a piece that should feel like a big, exhausting journey.

But in the second movement, Honeck once again had the Philharmonic playing as quietly as it ever does. And there was comforting warmth from the bassoons and clarinets — solos that could easily hold their own alongside any past performances.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.