The Brentano String Quartet had thought very hard about the concert it gave yesterday afternoon at Alice Tully Hall. But, in music – as in other parts of life – thinking isn’t everything.

The program worked like this: The Brentanos played a movement of a Mozart string quartet (in A major, K. 464). Then they played some Webern – the Five Movements for String Quartet, Op. 5; the Six Bagatelles for String Quartet, Op. 9; etc. The poet Mark Strand would read a stanza from a new poem, “The Webern Variations,” before each movement of whatever Webern work was being performed. (This is a poem he wrote expressly for this program, I gather.) Then the Brentanos would play another movement of the Mozart string quartet, until they got to the fourth and last movement, concluding the concert.

In their program note, the artistic directors of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center – under whose auspices this event took place – spoke of “creating new ways of hearing [traditional] repertoire.” And the first violinist of the BSQ, Mark Steinberg, wrote a long program note himself.

He recalled seeing an exhibition by a “video artist” in London. Here’s a sample of what Mr. Steinberg had to say about it: “[I]t becomes clear after some time that the microscopic shifts that are the quanta of our emotional expressions are being laid bare before us as we experience myriad subtleties of feeling.”

About the program staged yesterday, he said the following: “This is an evening about how we listen, how we receive music and the spoken word.” You are to see “the entire program” as “a collaboration between Mozart, Webern, and Strand.” And “all of this will become a larger, single work. … Evolving relationships and meanings appear in the mind and the heart of the perceiver. Such is art. Such is life.”

I should confess I found the program note and the concert a little pretentious. But here’s a radical, not-too-profound question: How did they play?

They played pretty well, as is their custom. The BSQ is an ever-interesting, usually well-prepared string quartet. In the Mozart, they were generally lyrical, clear, and coordinated. Their sound was neither honeyed nor ostentatiously raw. I could say that the Brentanos are a bit too fond of sudden crescendos. And Mozart’s minuet might have flowed out of them more naturally. It was somewhat calculated, a little precious, especially with its assorted hesitations. The BSQ can seem too pleased with itself (musically, I mean).

And how did they play the Webern? One of the Brentanos’ chief traits is intensity, and this served them well in Webern’s various pieces. Along with intensity, this music requires concentration – that is, fixed musical attentiveness. The Brentanos have this, too.

As for Mark Strand, he is an excellent poet – one of our best – and he has written an excellent poem. The poem – as is the point – is not unlike Webern’s pieces themselves: spare, compact, just. Mr. Strand did not read his work at all musically. He was laconic, affectless, almost to the point of parody. He sounded like the writer and TV personality Ben Stein, or, even more, like the comedian Steven Wright.

The audience was rapt, as you could have expected it to be: They were told they were getting something profound, different, and illuminating, and they were determined to receive it that way. (Or so it seemed to me.) I feel myself a dissenter: If you want to play a Mozart quartet, play a Mozart quartet. If you want to play Webern, play Webern. If you want to read a Mark Strand poem – or hear him read one – do that. If you want to create a new work … be my guest; manuscript paper is pretty cheap.

For me, nothing was enhanced: neither Mozart nor Webern nor Strand. I believe that yesterday’s program was like a grad-student brainstorm, born in a cloud of marijuana smoke.

I should allow, though, that others got far more out of it than I did. Perhaps windows were opened for them. And this is sure: If you’re going to present such a program, you couldn’t pick a better city than our own – where we all long to be above pretty productions of “Carmen” and performances of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth.

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Speaking of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth: You may recall that, a couple of weeks ago, I was praising Lorin Maazel and the New York Philharmonic for being especially good in the standard repertoire. They are fresh, inspired, and exciting, I said. They make you appreciate the most familiar music all over again.

I shouldn’t have opened my mouth, really.

Friday night’s concert included two of the most familiar works of all – “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and “Scheherazade” – and it was a disaster. This was doubly shocking, because these pieces should have been right up Lorin Maazel’s alley: They’re romantic, fascinating, pictorial, dazzling. Before Friday, I had never heard a concert so bad from Mr. Maazel and the Philharmonic. They were as bad as their worst critics say they are most of the time.

“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” began with a poor entrance. Okay. But almost all subsequent entrances were bad too, especially the pizzicato ones. And many notes were missed. Worse, Mr. Maazel did not seem engaged – he seemed actually bored, which is extremely uncharacteristic. Indeed, I praise this conductor repeatedly for his lack of boredom, especially in the most familiar repertoire. His “Sorcerer’s” was slow, leaden, and awkward. It was also grossly overmanaged (a perpetual rap on Mr. Maazel, but not always merited).The ultra-slow tempo in the climactic section could have worked, but it didn’t have enough style going for it – all it had was the tempo. There was no thrill or wonder in this account, and no finesse – no anything.

Okay, that was that. How about “Scheherazade,” after intermission? A little better than the Dukas, but still poor. It, too, was sloppy, and devoid of magic. Much of this score was labored, hesitant, clumsy. And overmanagement? Mr. Maazel even conducted the arpeggios on the harp (and not badly either, I should admit). Some individual players were up to snuff: Concertmaster Glenn Dicterow’s sound was sweet; principal cellist Carter Brey was tender, as usual; and Sherry Sylar was smooth and musical on the oboe. But the horns, and the orchestra at large? Third-rate, I’m sorry to report.

The cymbals toward the end of the work did not have to be so crude, but they sort of summed up the performance as a whole. And on the last note, Mr. Dicterow was very, very flat – another summing up.

Regular attendees of the New York Philharmonic will know to write this evening off as an aberration. (Though it does make one nervous.)

And between the Dukas and the Rimsky-Korsakov? We had a new work, or at least one receiving its U.S. premiere: Ross Edwards’s Oboe Concerto, composed in 2002. Mr. Edwards is an Australian, and his music is said to reflect the characteristics of his country: the desert, the aboriginals, all that. Mr. Maazel – supposedly a square b when it comes to contemporary music – has championed the concerto.

For it, the orchestra was configured into two sort of wedges. Then the lights went off – I mean, dead black. Soon the solo oboe was heard: This was Diana Doherty, the Aussie instrumentalist for whom the work was written. After a few moments, some lights came on, and there appeared Ms. Doherty, with wild blue face makeup, and bare arms (buff, she is), dancing all over the place. This is a “choreographed” concerto. Ms. Doherty looked like a creature from Cirque du Soleil, or “The Lion King.” Throughout the concerto, she danced, crouched, gyrated, pointed, scanned. Walked around.

Is music still music when it depends on these extra musical gimmicks?

About that score: It has some nice ideas in it, and the orchestration is interesting, but the music soon grows tedious. This is especially true of the slow movement (or the implied slow movement, as the concerto is unbroken), which is way too long for the material it contains.

And how did Ms. Doherty play? Nimbly and well, as a rule. And how did she dance, prance, act? Okay, I guess. But one question I had was, Who else can perform this, certainly this way? How about the Philharmonic’s chief oboe, Joseph Robinson? Is he ready to strip down, apply the blue makeup, and start crouching and gyrating? Would the concerto be all the more tedious as “straight” music (i.e., without the floor show)?

As I do not disguise, I was less than taken with this effort. Perhaps I am wrong. Others will find the Edwards-Doherty concerto a bold experiment, a breath of fresh air, something to liven up the musty old concert hall … you know the lines.