Music: Lennie’s Landing

Leonard Bernstein had not learned a new piano work in five years, but last week was special; he was making his first appearance with the New York Philharmonic since his appointment as its new permanent conductor and musical director. Lennie spent the weekend whipping Dmitry Shostakovich’s new Concerto No. 2 for Piano and Orchestra into final shape for its U.S. première.

Shostakovich wrote his concerto for his 19-year-old son Maxim, who is a pianist but reportedly not an outstanding one. Pop’s 15-minute exercise jittered and jumped in its two fast movements, meandered sweetly and slushily in its slow movement. The work was so far from the bite and sparkle of Shostakovich’s first piano concerto (1933) that no one could decide whether the five-finger exercises with which it ended were an attempt at wit or merely a concession to Maxim’s halting progress. But Bernstein piled through the piece just as if it all meant something, looking up from the keyboard occasionally to conduct his orchestra.

For the rest of the evening, he waved an unaccustomed baton (he has been using it to reduce the strain of conducting since he injured his back last fall). On the program: Robert Schumann’s overture to Manfred and Richard Strauss’s Don Quixote, the same pieces he conducted that day 14 years ago when he took over the Philharmonic as a substitute for ailing Bruno Walter to become the most famous young man about U.S. music. The parallel was obvious, and up in the gallery a new generation of fans whistled and cheered Lennie’s happy landing.