On Tuesday night, the New York Philharmonic played the kind of program many critics can’t stand: two standard works (very standard). You see, critics are in the concert hall night after night, unlike normal people. Normal people attend concerts every once in a while; and they may hear a particular Brahms symphony a few times in the span of a life. But the critic hears that Brahms symphony lots and lots of times. He doesn’t go to hear the Brahms symphony; he yawns through it, perhaps rolling his eyes. He goes to hear the new Birtwistle polka.

It’s a good thing institutions like the New York Philharmonic program for normal people, and not for critics. If they programmed for critics, they’d probably go broke.

It so happens that Lorin Maazel, the Philharmonic’s music director, is very good in the standard works. That is, he approaches them freshly, with enthusiasm and appreciation, not with an air of, “This old nag again?” I remember, in particular, a “gala” performance of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony. Now, everything about that concert had “phoned in” written all over it. A gala; the Tchaikovsky Fifth. But no: Mr. Maazel tackled that thing as though he were a kid, able to conduct the Fifth for the first time.

This is an invaluable, and very rare, trait in a conductor.

So, that program on Tuesday night consisted of Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony – not just any familiar Dvorak symphony, but the “New World”! – and Bartok’s “Concerto for Orchestra.” The group had played at least one of these works earlier in the season: They did the “New World” on Opening Night. And they had just taken them on a tour of the Midwest. Two days before, they had played them in Ann Arbor, Mich., one of the small music capitals of this country – actually, of the world.

You could tell that Mr. Maazel was not punching a clock by the time he took before beginning the Dvorak. He seemed to want to be sure that both his players and his audience were ready, mentally. And he shaped the hell out of the opening bars – maybe over shaped them, but, boy, did he care. This reminded me of his annual conducting of the national anthem, at the beginning of a season. He doesn’t merely tick it off, getting it out of the way. He treats it as music, deserving of the utmost care (whether we like the result or not).

Soon, in the first movement of the “New World,” he was hurling sounds throughout the hall, the score tingling, alive. He moved this music forward, wonderfully unlanguorous, as usual. Of course, he included his annoying little ritards, just to let you know he was on the podium, and still Lorin Maazel. But this movement’s ending was fabulous: furious, hammer-like.

The Largo – “Goin’ Home” – passed decently, and the scherzo was about the same way. Ideally, the opening of this movement is on a needle’s point, or a baton’s point. This was just slightly clunky – and slightly fuzzy – but it still stirred. As the movement wore on, however, I detected just a little phoning in, a little clock punching – though nothing outright yawny.

Mr. Maazel went directly into the finale, as is his wont: It is marked Allegro con fuoco, and the playing indeed had some fuoco (fire). As usual with this conductor, you heard things in the score you normally don’t hear – he flushes out the hidden. And he delivered another good ending: elongated, well calculated.

When Mr. Maazel conducted this work back in September, I wrote that he performed in such a way as to remind you why you loved the “New World” Symphony in the first place, way back when. I must say, this same thrill, for me, wasn’t present on Tuesday night. Is it because I’d heard the work, from these same forces, relatively recently? Or because this performance was dimmer? I suspect the latter, but I wouldn’t stake my life on it.

And how about the “Concerto for Orchestra”? The Philharmonic – not without justification – prides itself on being a virtuosic orchestra, and the Bartok is a piece in which to show that. The Philharmonic did.

Perhaps the high point of this performance, however, was the Elegy, not an especially virtuosic movement. This was poignant and raw, like a terrible wail, with an awful air of inexorability. As for the heart-pounding last movement, it was mainly a controlled frenzy, cold, and hot, and correct. The final chord was imperfect, but you can’t have everything.

As the audience cheered and whooped, Mr. Maazel left his orchestra on the stage alone. This had been, after all, a “concerto.”

And with Mr. Maazel – unlike with most conductors of American orchestras – you get encores. Which to begin? The most popular orchestral encore of all time, probably: Brahms’s Hungarian Dance in G minor. One wonders whether Brahms realized what he had done, when he wrote this little piece. From Mr. Maazel, it was whipped and glorious, almost a riot of music making. During one of the rests, a woman giggled, giddily. As he continued, Mr. Maazel half turned around, smiling. Throughout this piece, he offered the most beautiful and musical hamming up you’ve ever seen (or heard). Many critics pine for a younger conductor, to lead this orchestra – sheer perversion. You can get younger, but you can’t get more energetic, charged up, and committed.

Heretofore, the most charismatic G-minor Hungarian Dance I had heard came from the violin of Maxim Vengerov. I must say that Mr. Maazel outdid him.

He then sent the audience home with another favorite encore: Dvorak’s Slavonic Dance in B.

If musicians decline to approach familiar music in a jaded manner, they will not play jadedly, and the reaction to that playing won’t be jaded, either. I have bad news for critics, however: Two weeks from now, the Philharmonic will play both “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and “Scheherazade.” But there’s some relief: the U.S. premiere of the oboe concerto by the Australian composer Ross Edwards.

Oh, and one final point: If you’re going to play super-standard music, you’d better play it well. That, for me, is the cost of doing business.