Lorin Maazel's season-closing performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 2, "Resurrection" recently provided audiences and music critics with an opportunity to step back and weigh in on his first nine months as music director of the New York Philharmonic. Certainly, the 2003-04 season was hardly routine: it kicked off with the world premiere of a piece that later won the Pulitzer Prize (John Adams' "On the Transmigration of Souls"); included an extensive tour to the Far East; and ended with the news that the orchestra would leave Lincoln Center and return to Carnegie Hall.

At the same time, critics have remained decidedly mixed on Maazel's artistic agenda and his ability to transform the Philharmonic into a 21st-century institution, particularly at a time when orchestras are seen as dinosaurs catering to a graying audience. Below is a critical report card for Maazel's season-ending finale.

Martin Bernheimer, Financial Times
ARTS: Lorin Maazel/Mahler Lincoln Center, New York

"In the massive sprawl of Mahler's Second Symphony, aka Resurrection, Maazel sometimes appeared to confuse exalted heroism with melodramatic indulgence, spirituality with sentimentality… it was a long series of carefully plotted, painstakingly differentiated, skillfully executed, oddly anticlimactic bangs, all on behalf of Gustav Mahler…"

Justin Davidson, Newsday
Maazel Finishes With a Flourish: Leader's first season with the NY Philharmonic is vigorous - and moving

"Maazel's season-closing performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 2, 'Resurrection,' was a masterpiece of carefully regulated excitement, thrilling and perverse, brutal and rigorous… Even staunch anti-Maazelites acknowledge that he exerts a virtually martial control over an orchestra. The ability to forge 100 individuals into a precision tool inspires awe, regardless of how that tool is used. It goes beyond dexterity; it is wizardry…"

Anthony Tommasini, New York Times
In Mahler Blast, Season Bows Out

"Mr. Maazel conducted the work from memory and with unflagging energy and confidence: the precision, radiance, incisiveness and, where called for, sheer brassy power of the playing was consistently impressive."