For the New York Times, Anthony Tommasini found the concert inspiring, but took exception with the "gimmicky" program put together by conductor Michael Tilson Thomas.
For the Washington Post, Anne Midgette was frustrated by the inconsistent orchestral playing:
Music, it turns out, isn't a language universal enough that people can converse in it easily right off the bat. The orchestra sounded ragged, uneven, of wildly different quality. It sounded, in fact, like a lot of different people talking at one another in many different languages--which is, of course, what it was.Naturally, the entire concert is now viewable on YouTube.
