Last night, Riccardo Chailly stood before the New York Philharmonic, for his second of two subscription concerts. In the first concert, the Italian maestro conducted Mahler’s Seventh Symphony. In this second, he conducts a program of Mussorgsky, Stravinsky, and Arvo Part.

Mr. Chailly has been offered some of the most plum orchestral podiums in all of orchestradom. For many years, he led the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam; next season, he will take over the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. He must be doing something right, at least in important eyes.

The Part on this program is “Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten,” one of the composer’s touchstone works. Mr. Part, as you know, is what is sometimes known as a “holy minimalist,” one of a “trinity” of such minimalists, the others being Henryk Gorecki and John Tavener. By words such as “holy” and “trinity,” you well understand that a religious feeling marks the music of these three.

Mr. Part’s Britten tribute is a brief, simple piece, building inexorably. It has an organic power. A conductor should let it unspool, almost play itself. But Mr. Chailly is not such a conductor. He thrashes about, always trying to do something to the music. Last night, in this work – as in so many others he conducts – he was all too present. In addition, an orchestra is not being inauthentic if it plays this music with a beautiful, not a wan or scratchy, tone.

The percussionist Daniel Druckman – son of the late composer Jacob Druckman – was alert and sensitive on the chime.

The Mussorgsky on the program – whose final iterations are tonight and tomorrow night, by the way – are the “Songs and Dances of Death,” orchestrated by Shostakovich. Our soloist is Marina Domashenko, a young and increasingly popular Russian mezzo. One does not envy her, tackling this music, because Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Olga Borodina are around to sing it, and we hear them quite a lot. One who has heard either of those standouts in this set does not soon forget it.

Ms. Domashenko showed a beautiful voice, and more than that, a quite interesting voice. It is dark-inflected, and rather back in the throat. The singer used little vibrato. She produced generally a ghostly sound, which was not inappropriate to the cycle. Her intonation was secure, and her talent evident.

Yet this was not an account of the “Songs and Dances of Death” that riveted or gripped. The set did not evince its terrible power. I, for one, could never quite shake the impression of a very pretty mezzo-soprano singing in a black dress, with a gold jacket-thing on top. And this music ought to have us in its claws.

The orchestra was adequate in its accompaniment, although too loud for the mezzo at times. Strangely enough, Ms. Domashenko had her arms crossed through nearly all of the final song, “The Field Marshal.” I got the feeling this was a stunt of some kind – that Ms. Domashenko was trying to demonstrate something clever – but I could not divine its meaning.

After intermission, we have one work: Stravinsky’s “Firebird,” complete. Orchestras are to be commended for programming the complete “Firebird” – rather than a suite – because this is a ballet score that can bear such programming. It provides nearly endless opportunities for an orchestra, and a conductor.

Last night, many of the Philharmonic’s first-deskmen played well. Flutist Robert Langevin was warm, adept, and affecting. Cynthia Phelps delivered a wow-making viola solo. Concertmaster Glenn Dicterow and cellist Carter Brey were excellent in a little colloquy. The horn, unfortunately, did not have its best night: not in sound, not in pitch, and not in musical expression.

All of Stravinsky’s notes were there, but this was a curiously ineffective “Firebird.” It contained little mystery, little exoticism, hardly any thrill. Creepily intense moments were limp; big, blooming moments were unimpressive; panting ecstasy was… nonexistent. “The Firebird” features a calm-after-the-storm section, and yet the calm did not come as a relief, because the storm had not been exciting or exhausting. In fact – what storm?

“The Firebird” should not be bland or innocuous. It should be dizzying, slightly threatening, enthralling. This performance actually verged on boring, which is a shocking thing to say. I wanted to run home and put on my Antal Dorati/London Symphony Orchestra record.

Which, by the way, I have done.

The program will be repeated tonight and February 19 at 8 p.m. (Lincoln Center, 212-875-5000).