When polymath Condoleezza Rice was asked three years ago if she wanted to become president of America, she replied, “No, but I would like to play the Brahms Second Piano Concerto.” On Saturday, Norwegian Leif Ove Andsnes had his opportunity with the New York Philharmonic.

This is a magnificent piece, the Brahmsian bear, written by the strong-handed pianist for his own performances in a big, somewhat growling, yet oddly tender manner. The Allegro appassionato alone can eat a pianist alive. It is the work that accompanied the explosion of Sviatoslav Richter onto the Western music scene in 1960, when he dazzled at Orchestra Hall in Chicago after Erich Leinsdorf had to leave the Metropolitan Opera and fly in at the last minute to replace an ailing Fritz Reiner. Two days later, the Russian sensation made the recording that still stands as the benchmark against which all others are judged.

On the podium for this current rendition was Riccardo Muti, the maestro designated to be the power behind the throne in the post-Maazel era. Mr. Andsnes was at the top of his game, playing at a level of accuracy and clarity rare in live performance. Every note was hit in its exact center and, even in the arpeggiated material, sounded distinct. Individual note dynamics were confidently intoned. For sheer technical excellence, this was awe-inspiring.

But nothing in this realization moved me. Mr. Andsnes exacts a rather large tariff for our consumption of his dexterous brilliance. He is one of those “new Europeans” for whom any show of emotion is verboten (his violinistic equivalent would be Christian Tetzlaff). Paradoxically, as this keyboard artist was distilling the feeling out of the piece, Mr. Muti was injecting a healthy dose of it into the orchestra. There were really two different versions of the Brahms before us this day. When Mr. Andsnes ended the first movement an entire beat before Mr. Muti, it seemed like an aberration. But when the same phenomenon reared its ugly head in movement two, an unwanted pattern emerged.

Mr. Andsnes hears the great Allegro appassionato differently than most; he chooses to emphasize delicacy and quietude. This is an interesting and worthy approach. If only Mr. Muti were on board. He was engaged in tinkering just a bit with that Philharmonic sound, causing various swells that are not written into the score or part of the great tradition. It was amusing to see these little, tasteful touches with this particular orchestra and compare them in the imagination with what Mr. Maazel might have perpetrated on Brahms. Had this movement been played without the remainder of the piece, it might have been possible to ascribe the disconnect between bench and podium strictly to stylistic differences. But there was much more going on here, a classic clash between a Romantic conductor and a forensic pianist.

The lapidary style of Mr. Andsnes did not serve him well in the Andante, as his enviable clarity and isolation of each tone worked against any sense of a singing line. Although first cellist Carter Brey may not have the world’s most beautiful tone, he did spin a lovely lyrical web for the famous main theme of the movement (and did quite well in the reprise at the end). This only served to highlight the lack of bel canto at the keyboard. Throughout the afternoon, the horn section, including the solos of principal Philip Myers, left a lot to be desired.

The orchestra plays earnestly for Mr. Muti and this bodes well for his regency. The jury may still be out about Alan Gilbert, but the Philharmonic won’t sink with such a steady hand at the rudder. The program opened with a flabby, plodding, and anarchic run through the Octet of Felix Mendelssohn that featured brightness of tone over rich ensemble sound. That quality — the brightness, not the flabbiness — would be acceptable in a work of such youthful exuberance if the performance as a whole, which was mounted by the eight top chair players of the Phil’s string section, had not sounded so slapdash and under-rehearsed.