Name games

Critics at The New York Times speculate on prospective successors to Alan Gilbert as music director of the New York Philharmonic – attempting, it seems, to create a groundswell for the Finnish composer-conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, formerly music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and more modest rumbles for David Robertson of the St. Louis Symphony and Marin Alsop of the Baltimore Symphony:

www.nytimes.com/2015/03/15/arts/music/the-new-york-philharmonic-and-the-search-for-a-new-music-director.html

The Guardian’s Tom Service, meanwhile, offers more detached ratings of prospective successors to Simon Rattle at the Berlin Philharmonic:

http://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2015/mar/10/berlin-philharmonic-next-principal-conductor

The Berlin musicians, who elect their chief conductors, will hold their first round of voting on May 11.

The New York Phil’s executives and board probably will be searching and dickering with candidates and their agents for some time.