Classical Music in NYC This Week

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Our guide to the city’s best classical music and opera.

BERNARD FOCCROULLE at the Church of the Ascension (Nov. 9, 7:30 p.m.). An organ recital with a difference, this, as the renowned Belgian player is accompanied by contrasting video projections by Lynette Wallworth. Under the title “Darkness and Light,” and under the auspices of Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival, Mr. Foccroulle alternates mainly between contemporary and Baroque works, from Hosokawa and Gubaidulina to Grigny, Buxtehude and Bach.
212-721-6500, lincolncenter.org/white-light-festival

ANGELA HEWITT at the 92nd Street Y (Nov. 8, 7:30 p.m.). Ms. Hewitt’s survey of Bach’s keyboard works continues, and surely there can be no more experienced guide through music that, in the right hands, remains as fulfilling as any. She is making her way through the partitas at the moment: On the bill this time are the third, fifth and sixth of the set.
212-415-5500, 92y.org

ISRAEL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA at Carnegie Hall (Nov. 7-9, 8 p.m.). Zubin Mehta and his ensemble, famous for its burnished sound, receive three nights on the main stage at Carnegie, and are filling them with astonishingly conventional repertoire. Tuesday offers the only nod to contemporary music, with a suite from Amit Poznansky’s music for the film “Footnote,” and then proceeds through Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 (with Yefim Bronfman) and Strauss’s “Ein Heldenleben.” On Wednesday, there’s heavier fare, with Mahler’s Symphony No. 3. And then on Thursday, there’s Weber, the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto (with Gil Shaham) and Schubert’s Symphony No. 9.
212-247-7800, carnegiehall.org

LEILA JOSEFOWICZ AND JOHN NOVACEK at the 92nd Street Y (Nov. 4, 8 p.m.). A panoramic view of the talents of this fine violinist and her longstanding pianist, taking in Sibelius’s “Valse triste,” Prokofiev’s Violin Sonata No. 1 and John Adams’s “Road Movies,” as well as a complete rarity: a violin sonata by Bernd Alois Zimmermann, to celebrate that composer’s centenary this year.
212-415-5500, 92y.org

NEW YORK CITY OPERA at Zankel Hall (Nov. 9, 7:30 p.m.). This is exactly the kind of thing the revived City Opera ought to be doing. Gil Rose, that intrepid Bostonian explorer of recent American works and much else, conducts a concert in celebration of Dominick Argento’s 90th birthday, including two one-act operas: “Miss Havisham’s Wedding Night” and “A Water Bird Talk,” based on a play by Chekhov.
212-247-7800, carnegiehall.org

NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC at David Geffen Hall (Nov. 9, 7:30 p.m., through Nov. 14). Leonard Bernstein’s old band is still making its way through the composer’s symphonies, as it has been doing for the past few weeks. Leonard Slatkin is on the podium for the Symphony No. 3, “Kaddish,” which, inexplicably, is paired with Strauss’s “Don Quixote.” The orchestra’s principal viola and cello, Cynthia Phelps and Carter Brey, act as soloists in “Quixote.”
212-875-5656, nyphil.org

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