Prior to becoming Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in 2009, Alan Gilbert had been assistant to Christoph von Dohnányi in Cleveland, so it was perhaps not surprising that his former teacher should make more frequent guest appearances with the orchestra. These subscription concerts opened with the punchy Con Brio by Jörg Widmann (b.1973), originally written to complement Beethoven’s Seventh, as its deconstruction of the symphony’s introduction reveals, but now well on its way to becoming a contemporary classic in its own right.