Marin Alsop led the orchestra in a program of works by Beethoven, Brahms and Stravinsky, as well as a new violin concerto by Nico Muhly.
Near the end of the lullaby that gives way to the blazing finale of Stravinsky’s “Firebird” Suite, the music slows and thins to a whisper.
In the ballet, this is the moment when an evil sorcerer and his minions fall into a deep sleep. In some renditions, it registers as little more than a pause. But at David Geffen Hall on Thursday, the New York Philharmonic, under the baton of Marin Alsop, restored fairy-tale mystery to that transition.