In a very special night at the Park Avenue Armory, I witnessed the NY Philharmonic in Philharmonic 360, where they surrounded the audience in music with a selection of works to take advantage of the spatial nature of this setup. They kicked off with an uncredited fanfare which emanated from various parts of the auditorium, (though I suspect it was Mozart), followed by Boulez’s Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna , a  post-serial work that used textures and dissonance. After this point, women in gowns and tall powdered wigs started to enter the hall, run around and pose followed by preening blacksuited counterparts. They kicked into the finale of part one of the Don Giovanni opera by Mozart. The singers were scattered about the room and emerged from the audience. After the intermission  Stockhausen’s Gruppen was performed, a stunning  piece for three orchestras, and concluded with Charles Ives’ beautiful classic “The Unanswered Question” (a favorite of my friend Dr Shohl). Conducting were NY Phil’s director Alan Gilbert, augmented by Magnus Lindberg and Matthew Pintscher. [This video clip  is a different version of Gruppen, not from the Armory show.]

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