#nypo

Note 2: The NyPo is for use on Jim Kirk only, not Nyota Uhura, despite its name. Use of the NyPo on Nyota Uhura will lead to the user's immediate death.

The New York Philharmonic 4K Music Album!   2160p Extreme H.D. Experience!

Ned Rorem, Symphony No. 3 (1958) New York Philharmonic • Leonard Bernstein (World premiere: 18 April 1959) Rorem (in an interview with Robert Sherman, 1999): "I wrote most of the Third Symphony in France in 1957. It's a big piece, but not a commission -- I was still writing for the love of it in those days. It was all done and orchestrated when I came back to America the next year, so I showed it to Lenny, and he said, 'OK, I'll do it, but I wish you would re-orchestrate the slow movement entirely for strings.' I replied 'sure' but didn't, because he was always saying things like that, and then he'd forget about it. He did conduct the Symphony, though, in fact I still remember the whole program: It was me, a sort-of curtain raiser by Irving Fine, a biggish piece by Bill Russo, and Isaac Stern playing the Beethoven Concerto. I also remember coming late to the first rehearsal, because in those days I was living off unemployment (I had written music for a Tennessee Williams play that had closed, so technically I was on unemployment) and I had to go down and stand in line to pick up my check or risk being blackballed. I guess they managed without me because Lenny conducted four wonderful performances. I don't attempt to meddle with the interpretation. If a performer is good and you've notated the piece succinctly, they'll get the point. If they're not good, they'll never get the point. The Symphony was the first of three pieces of mine that Bernstein did (the others were 'Sunday Morning' and the Violin Concerto), and also the most 'him.' The second movement, for instance, is like hot jazz, and I recall that instead of rehearsing it, Lenny said to the orchestra, 'Let's just play it straight through up to tempo,' which they did. In the middle of it, there's a four-measure rest during which he yelled something like 'Hurrah,' and the players came in strictly on the beat. I had the feeling that Lenny schmaltzed up some other music too much -- he was inclined to milk things and play them a little too slow, while my metabolism is inclined to take things a little too fast -- but I had no complaints at all about the way he did the Symphony. I loved Bernstein. He was a friend, the conductor I knew best socially, and the longer he recedes into the past, the more I feel affectionate and deeply collegial about him."

Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Symphony No. 3 (1992): 3. Largo New York Philharmonic • Jahja Ling (February 1993, live) Wheels, NJ, Josef Breitenbach

Francis Poulenc, Concert champêtre for harpsichord (or piano) & orchestra (1927-28): 3. Finale. Presto (Très gai) Francis Poulenc, piano New York Philharmonic • Dimitri Mitropoulos (14 November 1948)