Gustavo Dudamel takes full command of the New York Philharmonic. The Metropolitan Opera tries to survive. The Berlin Philharmonic returns to Carnegie Hall. And the composer Steve Reich, who turns 90 this year, is celebrated as a modern master ought to be.
Here are some of the highlights of the fall classical music calendar. (Locations are in Manhattan unless otherwise specified, and dates and programs are subject to change.)
September
GUSTAVO DUDAMEL AND THE NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC Maybe you’ve heard, but a Venezuelan superstar is about to become the music and artistic director of the New York Philharmonic. Dudamel opens the season with a special event at Radio City Music Hall (Sept. 10), before settling in with a couple of subscription programs at Lincoln Center: the first sets John Adams’s “On the Transmigration of Souls” alongside Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony and a new work by Zosha Di Castri; the second pairs a Tania León premiere with Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. An inaugural gala follows, as do one-night-only dates with Dudamel’s fellow musical celebrities Lang Lang and Yo-Yo Ma, before the orchestra departs for a European tour. (Sept. 16—Oct. 2; David Geffen Hall)
FRANZ WELSER-MÖST AND THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA Still setting a standard that most other American orchestras can only aspire to, the Cleveland Orchestra bids farewell to Franz Welser-Möst, its music director for the past quarter century, at the end of this season. His programs of late have been sharp on contrast and short on conventionality: the first of the fall combines Shostakovich’s wartime Eighth Symphony and Strauss’s “Four Last Songs” (Golda Schultz is the soprano), while the second includes the second symphonies of both Brahms and Martinu. (Sept. 17-26; Severance Music Center, Cleveland)
‘MACBETH’ The Metropolitan Opera is abandoning its recent habit of opening its season with a contemporary work, a hint that it might be tempted to run for the safety of the standards in a bid to stave off financial disaster. Opening night is still opening night, though, and this one certainly has promise: Verdi’s “Macbeth,” in a new production by Louisa Proske, a founder of the rampantly inventive Heartbeat Opera. Lise Davidsen, now the Met’s most important star, sings Lady Macbeth, with Quinn Kelsey as Macbeth, Freddie De Tommaso as Macduff and Ryan Speedo Green as Banquo. The music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts. (Sept. 22-Oct. 20; Metropolitan Opera)
MILLER THEATER Columbia University’s concerts open with a major undertaking: the excellent violinist Jennifer Koh playing all of Bach’s sonatas and partitas in a single evening (Sept. 24, Miller Theater). Early music highlights include visits from the unmatched vocal ensemble Stile Antico, which this year is adding a Christopher Cerrone premiere to an evening of Monteverdi, Palestrina, Lassus and the like (Oct. 15, Church of St. Mary the Virgin) and the Gesualdo Six, which will explore ancient and modern pieces written for the Compline service (Nov. 12, Church of St. Mary the Virgin). Contemporary composers are always at the heart of any Miller season: The first concert in its composer portraits series (Oct. 29; Miller Theater) focuses on Suzanne Farrin and her new opera, “Macabéa.”
October
BERLIN PHILHARMONIC No orchestra on Earth plays quite like the Berlin Philharmonic, so even if the repertoire it brings to start Carnegie Hall’s season is distinctly unadventurous, there is no reason to grumble too much. The gala opening, under Berlin’s chief conductor, Kirill Petrenko, combines Italian arias sung by the tenor Jonas Kaufmann with two thirds of Respighi’s Roman trilogy. Petrenko and the orchestra follow that with two programs that stick to late Romantic stereotype: Elgar’s “Enigma Variations” and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 fill one bill, and Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and Strauss’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra” comprise the other. Daniil Trifonov is the soloist. (Oct. 8-11; Carnegie Hall)
CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER Continuing on its steady path under its artistic directors David Finckel and Wu Han, the Chamber Music Society offers a number of enticing programs this fall. Opening night concentrates on American music, with a neat evening of Bolcom, Beach, Herrmann and Copland that concludes with the original instrumentation of “Appalachian Spring” (Oct. 13; Alice Tully Hall). Five pianists, including Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, gather for a concert of two-piano music that finds room for Lutoslawski’s “Variations on a Theme by Paganini” and a version of Gershwin’s “An American in Paris” (Nov. 7, Alice Tully Hall). And there is new music by Jessie Montgomery, Samuel Carl Adams, Caroline Shaw and Mark-Anthony Turnage from the Calidore String Quartet. (Nov. 12; Rose Studio)
PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA Yannick Nézet-Séguin has the honor of leading a complete cycle of Mahler’s symphonies in Midtown Manhattan this season, if by “complete” you don’t count the unfinished Tenth and “Das Lied von der Erde.” Almost all of Nézet-Séguin’s performances will be in winter and spring, with the Vienna Philharmonic contributing the Second, Fourth and Ninth in February, the Met Orchestra drawing the Eighth and Sixth in June, and the Philadelphia Orchestra scattering the First, Third and Seventh in between. Before that, the Philadelphians get the show on the road with the Fifth. (Oct. 13; Carnegie Hall)
STEVE REICH AT 90 Last season, Arvo Pärt was the 90-year-old master feted in the classical music world; this year, it is New York’s own Steve Reich. Showing how influential Reich’s minimalism has been, the local celebrations are considerable. Perhaps the most ambitious will be at the Park Avenue Armory, where the Steve Reich Ensemble, Alarm Will Sound and musicians from the Manhattan School of Music will combine for five performances of an extended staging of Reich’s masterpiece, “Music for 18 Musicians,” that will last for more than three hours. (Oct. 14-18; Wade Thompson Drill Hall)
But there are plenty of other Reich concerts scheduled, too, and they add up to a comprehensive tribute. Carnegie Hall honors the occasion with a program from the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Ensemble Signal and the guests Lisa Kaplan, Nico Muhly and Bryce Dessner: That concert includes “Double Sextet,” for which Reich won the Pulitzer Prize, “Electric Counterpoint” and the U.S. premiere of “In All Your Ways” (Oct. 22; Carnegie Hall). A few days later and a few blocks uptown, So Percussion take on “Drumming,” an elemental piece that still sounds potent more than half a century after it was written (Oct. 28; 92nd Street Y). And Trinity Church offers three free lunchtime concerts featuring Reich’s music, including one that puts “Tehillim” in the context of the Bach cantata that influenced it (Sept. 23), as well as a couple of evening concerts involving Sandbox Percussion, which include another chance, on Nov. 19, to hear “Drumming.”
TAKACS QUARTET “When anyone leaves a quartet, however good the reasons, it is a wrenching experience for all concerned,” the Takacs Quartet’s first violinist Edward Dusinberre has written. For the Takacs, an indispensable group for decades, this season must be especially difficult: Since the retirement of its cellist, Andras Fejer, it is without any of its founding Hungarian players. But if any quartet can cope, the Takacs can. They will have the pianist Jeremy Denk for company at their first New York appearance with Fejer’s successor, Mihai Marica; on the Carnegie bill is music by Franck, Mendelssohn and Carlos Simon. (Oct. 16; Zankel Hall)
‘LINCOLN IN THE BARDO’ Verdi might be opening the Met’s season, but the house is still bringing contemporary works to the stage, and this premiere has the potential to be one of the most artistically satisfying new pieces it has produced in recent years. Missy Mazzoli and her longstanding librettist Royce Vavrek have several successes to their names, including “Breaking the Waves” and “Proving Up.” Here, they adapt the ghostly George Saunders novel that has a grieving Abraham Lincoln at its heart. Peter Mattei plays the president, alongside a cast that includes Christine Goerke, Janai Brugger, Stephanie Blythe, Ryan McKinny and Anthony Roth Costanzo. Yannick Nézet-Séguin will be in the pit, and the production is by Lileana Blain-Cruz. (Oct. 19—Nov. 14; Metropolitan Opera)
YUNCHAN LIM He may be only 22 years old and not even six months from his New England Conservatory graduation, but the South Korean superstar Yunchan Lim has already made his piano recitals essential dates on the classical calendar. Make a note in your diary, then, of his four dates at Carnegie Hall this season, across which he will perform all of Mozart’s sonatas, with a few fantasias thrown in for good measure. The first concert includes the raging, desolate Sonata in A minor, which was written around the time that Mozart’s mother died, when the composer was about the same age as Lim is today. Later installments in the cycle come in December, March and May. (Oct. 21; Carnegie Hall)
ELIM CHAN AND THE SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY Orchestras all over the country are appointing new music directors right now, or trying to. One of the most exciting recent hires is Elim Chan, who will take over in San Francisco next fall. She conducts there only once this season: The unusual program includes Brahms’s “Nänie” and Pärt’s “Magnificat” with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus; the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the soloist Renaud Capuçon; and John Adams’s “Doctor Atomic” Symphony, drawn from his opera on the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer. (Oct. 29-31; Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco)
November
‘TOSCA’ If you really, really want to, you can hear the Metropolitan Opera perform Puccini’s perpetual heartbreaker 26 times this season, with five different Toscas and four Cavaradossis; the first run of David McVicar’s production features Oksana Lyniv on the podium and Saioa Hernández in the title role (Nov. 1-20, Metropolitan Opera). But the New York Philharmonic has also chosen “Tosca” to begin a series of operas in concert at Carnegie Hall, its home of long ago. Dudamel conducts a cast that includes Marina Rebeka as Tosca, Jonas Kaufmann as Cavaradossi and Ludovic Tézier as Scarpia. (Nov. 13-15; Carnegie Hall)
DANIEL HARDING AND THE LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC How do you replace a conductor like Gustavo Dudamel? You can’t really, so the Los Angeles Philharmonic has found a different kind of musician to succeed him as music director, and an unexpected one: An artist of subtle talents, Harding, who is British, has never had much of a career in America, and he arrives with a bit of a point to prove. Although he starts work for real next season, he makes a couple of appearances with his new orchestra before then. Music by Brahms, Bernstein and Betsy Jolas makes up this first program since his appointment. (Nov. 6-8; Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles)
JEAN RONDEAU Late last year, this inimitable harpsichordist released a remarkable recording project, a 10-disc complete survey of Couperin — not the usual Couperin you hear, François, but the rather less known Louis. This Carnegie recital folds music by both into a broader look at the French Baroque, including scores by Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer and Jean-Philippe Rameau. (Nov. 6; Weill Recital Hall)
LES ARTS FLORISSANTS Few early music ensembles match this French group for sheer style, and any chance to hear these players with their founder, the harpsichordist and conductor William Christie, now in his ninth decade, should not be missed. Along with Paul Agnew, who shares music director responsibilities for the ensemble, Christie leads a selection of Monteverdi’s madrigals. (Nov. 11; 92nd Street Y)
‘JENUFA’ Janacek fans, rejoice! The Czech composer, whose works have a habit of making lifelong devotees of the listeners who get to experience them, returns to the Met for the first time since 2016 with this typically gritty Claus Guth staging of “Jenufa,” an import from the Royal Opera House in London. The soprano Asmik Grigorian leads a stellar cast, joined by Nina Stemme, Allan Clayton and Sean Panikkar. The conductor Tomas Hanus was born in Brno, where the opera had its premiere in 1904. (Nov. 16-Dec. 4; Metropolitan Opera)
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