It’s summertime at the New York Philharmonic. How can you tell? For one thing, it’s light out when you go to a concert. For another thing, there’s a banner of the city skyline behind the orchestra. And there are little trees planted on the stage. (A tree grows at Lincoln Center?) And the players are in white jackets (the men, that is). And the programming is a little cutesy, though still substantial.

Thursday night’s program was titled “A Little Nightmare Music,” bringing us “Night on Bald Mountain” and other scary stuff. On the podium was Bramwell Tovey, an English conductor whose permanent gigs are in Vancouver and Luxembourg.

He began with Leopold Stokowski’s famous arrangement of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, and the first measures did not bode well. They were grossly extended – nonsensical, really. Mr. Tovey would continue with his manipulations and stretchings, and the Philharmonic players stumbled as they tried to follow. Stokowski himself, though known for flamboyance, conducted this music rather straight: His musical sense never left him (in anything), and he was ever conscious of conducting Bach.

As the fugue began, the viola section was pathetic – weak, unsure – and so were the second violins that followed. This may have been a summer concert, and the men may have been in white jackets, but it was still a professional concert, and the people had paid cash money to hear it. Geesh.

Next on the bill was Gounod’s “Funeral March of a Marionette,” which was limp, gray, and apparently little rehearsed. Among other things, it could have used more of a march snap. Flaccidity in music is seldom advisable, and it is especially ill-advised in a march. Does the Gounod ditty qualify as a march, sweet and sly as it is? Of course – marches don’t have to be the “Washington Post.”

To inject greatness into the evening was the Canadian pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin, engaged to play Liszt’s “Totentanz” (“Dance of Death”). Mr. Hamelin has a monster technique, and he is a fine musician, to boot. He played this piece – which some of us prefer to either Liszt concerto – with extraordinary authority and assurance. Anything Liszt threw at him, he could handle. Critically important, he showed great respect for the piece, musically; it was not merely a romp to him. His respect was evident even when he was glissandoing his head off. And in the nonviolent parts of the piece, he was beautifully lyrical.

The second half of the program began with the Mussorgsky, “Night on Bald Mountain,” in the Rimsky-Korsakov version. Here, Mr. Tovey and the orchestra were perfectly competent. Articulation in the brass and winds was excellent. The entire account was precise, and that was fortunate: Without precision, this piece, and pieces like it, lose their thrill.

And then? Dukas’s “Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” which the Philharmonic played on two subscription concerts during the season just ended. If they don’t know the piece by now … As with the Mussorgsky, this account was perfectly competent, even if the music could have been exploited and enjoyed more. Rarely is this wonderful tone poem done justice, in my experience. But – if we wish to compare (and who doesn’t?) – Mr. Tovey turned in a better performance than either of those I heard last season: conducted by Lorin Maazel and David Robertson.

To end the printed program was Liszt’s “Mephisto Waltz” No. 1, played with clarity and verve. The concertmistress, Michelle Kim, and the principal cellist, Carter Brey, were superb in their solo moments. (Question: Can you be shot for saying “concertmistress”? You can barely say “actress” these days.) Good as the orchestra was, it would have been a treat to hear Mr. Hamelin play this waltz on the piano, where it belongs. New Yorkers have the opportunity to hear Mr. Hamelin in recital this summer, when he participates in the Mannes School’s International Keyboard Institute & Festival. (That recital is July 30.)

Sending the audience home was an encore, something witchy from Humperdinck’s “Hansel and Gretel,” dispatched satisfactorily.

Throughout the evening, Maestro Tovey spoke to the audience, and spoke charmingly. Has there ever been a Brit who couldn’t talk? But he also spoke a lot – perhaps too much. There is a belief, among certain musicians and music administrators, that it’s important to talk to the audience, in order to level a “wall” between performer and listener. It’s amazing, however, how well music talks for itself.

Also, Mr. Tovey took the now-standard line about Mussorgsky: that Rimsky-Korsakov came along and “sanitized” his pieces, and wouldn’t it have been nice if Mussorgsky had been let alone, all rough and wild and brilliant? Repeat this line at any cocktail party, and people around you will nod admiringly and sympathetically. But it’s bunk: Rimsky-Korsakov did Mussorgsky a favor – more than one of them – and he, Mussorgsky, would have known it.