Such is the nature of contemporary American appreciation of the arts that the cartoonist R. Crumb has had a film made about his life, while the composer George Crumb has toiled away in relative obscurity. Each is a product of the 1960s counterculture, but the “Keep on Truckin'” caricaturist was a lot closer to its psychedelic center. On Friday evening at Bargemusic on the Fulton Ferry Landing, the unique sounds of the Orphic Mr. Crumb took center stage.

The concert opened unannounced, with pianist Steven Beck launching Mr. Crumb’s Processional without warning. This is a complex digital exercise that includes plucking the strings of the soundboard directly. There is really nowhere to enter or exit the stage and so the possibility of the other musicians emerging in some sort of introductory parade had to be imagined.

This, however, might have been fortuitous because the next work on the program was the extremely moving Vox Balaenae, in which the players wear masks. They do so because this “voice of the whale” is designed to be elemental, a powerful creation myth from 1971 scored for electric flute, electric cello, and prepared piano. The masks help minimize the human presence, fostering the illusion that the world is being realized right before the audience’s ears. Mr. Crumb’s genius in this seminal piece is that, in a good performance such as this one, one feels they are actually present for the creation of the piece. Incorporating sung notes in sea mammal language makes for an indelibly metaphorical experience.

The Sonar players handled this ancient Greek style of integration of drama, song, and instrumentalism quite well. Flutist Patti Monson was eloquent and colorful while cellist Benjamin Capps provided steady grounding. Mr. Beck had much to do and handled himself well both inside and outside of his piano. The one aspect of this realization that Mr. Crumb could not have written into the score turned out to be the most transporting of all. The rocking of the water beneath us all not only supported the whale imagery, but, more significantly, was the ideal atmosphere for a birthing experience.

Bravely appearing without a mask, Aaron Boyd joined Mr. Beck for Mr. Crumb’s “Four Nocturnes for Violin and Piano.” These are miniatures and were well played, but contain too many effects per measure for my taste. Perhaps the problem was simply contextual; had this performance been part of a standard violin recital, its percussive rappings and flutter tongue ornamentation might have seemed daring, quixotic. Here it was just same old same old.

All ended with Mr. Crumb’s “Black Angels for String Quartet.” The composer himself has bemoaned the fate of this piece, as it has been typecast as the quintessential anti-Vietnam war opus of the avant-garde. He feels that it should stand on its own merits, divorced from geopolitical and nostalgic considerations, and he is absolutely correct about this.

The strings, which now included Amos Fayette, second violin, and Maurycy Banaszek, viola, delivered an assiduously rehearsed performance, and demonstrated a strong commitment to this difficult and thorny music. The group, however, lacked the intensity necessary for a great reading of such a hyperemotional piece. Technically, the four gentlemen were fine, able to not only hit their individual string notes but also work with gongs, water glasses, bells, and even maracas — hey, it was the ’60s! — but somehow the requisite excitement and sense of living in interesting times was just not present this particular evening.

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The New York Philharmonic’s presentation of the major orchestral accomplishments of Johannes Brahms concluded this weekend at Avery Fisher Hall. On Friday morning, I attended the fifth installment, which brought together the last two of the four symphonies.

It was hardly a festive day for Brahms. The opening notes of the Third Symphony were out of tune and out of balance and sadly set the tone for a poor showing from the home team. If any piece of music has a natural flow as ingrained as the circadian rhythms of life, it is this Allegro con brio. Except in Lorin Maazel’s fussily tinkered version. Here momentum was frequently interrupted by irritating ritards and their corresponding accelerations. The impression was that of driving with the emergency brake engaged. Brahms knew what he was doing as a composer; Maestro Maazel apparently does not.

It is tempting to label this conductor inconsistent, but perhaps a better description is that he is just plain odd. This day, he led a very well paced Andante, with just a hint of lilt and a delicate rhythmic presence. His approach was loving, even sentimental. He immediately followed this heartfelt movement with a desiccated and deconstructed Poco Allegretto that was perversely declarative. It was difficult to process the information that these two interpretations could come from the same baton. For a festival titled Brahms the Romantic, this was positively counterintuitive music making.

The Fourth Symphony fared little better. Some readers, although none from the New York area, have chided me for not being an ardent enough booster of my local band, so let’s call this present realization rough-hewn rather than rough around the edges. But any sense of refinement was definitely missing in action. There are fans who find the E Minor, with its reliance on variation form and Handelian passacaglia, tough sledding, and this performance would have added fuel to their argumentative fire. In fact, it is this type of raggedly frayed playing that led to the wisecrack “exit in case of Brahms” becoming a catchphrase in the early years of the last century.

This rendition was not as idiosyncratic as many of Mr. Maazel’s recomposing efforts, but it was disappointing mechanically. Violins were shrill throughout and brass was disproportionately dominant. There was a time when the Phil sounded like this — blowsy, imprecise, pococurante — every night. Hearing this sloppy version did not make me nostalgic for the Boulez or Mehta eras; rather it made me rethink some of my recent admiration for their technical progress.

This is the end of Mr. Maazel’s penultimate year as music director. Rather than worry about a high profile replacement with a suitably European veneer straight out of central casting, perhaps the Philharmonic can really shake things up in New York by hiring a man who has the patience and the commitment to make our orchestra sound good every night of its long season.