Reviews

The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and their indefatigable music director, Nicholas McGegan, were in top form as they tore into Handel’s oratorio Athalia Saturday night. That means that a writer can only cast about for enough synonyms for the word wonderful.

NEW YORK — The YouTube Symphony Orchestra gave its first — and as far as anyone knows, only — concert last night and a good time was had by all. Isaac Stern Auditorium of Carnegie Hall glowed festively, or at least differently, with atmospheric lighting.

This is the time of year when San Francisco Symphony Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, for better or worse, yields the podium to a series of guest conductors. Later this month, and in the first part of May, Oliver Knussen, Yan Pascal Tortelier, and Bernard Labadie will take up the baton; this past weekend it was Stéphane Denève’s turn.

For its 2008-2009 season finale on Saturday, the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, under Benjamin Simon’s effective direction, presented an eclectic program with a theme of “Bach to Bach” — meaning, of course, that the concert would both begin and end with a Bach composition, though the finale was a very different kind of Bach.

Noisy music with imaginary animals from both sides of the program threatened to cage the central Mozart concerto at Tuesday's Marin Symphony concert. But the songbird in the Mozart wound up soaring above the surrounding beasts, thanks to fine playing by principals Dan Levitan on harp and Monica Daniel-Barker on flute.