Like just about everybody in the classical music business here, I'm trying to understand the Big Event -- the June 2 announcement that the New York Philharmonic will merge with Carnegie Hall, and in 2006 will move its concerts there from Lincoln Center.
This is momentous, like a planet changing places in the sky. The Philharmonic clearly benefits; It gets a legendary concert hall, with better acoustics than the one it had, helping it attract guest conductors, soloists and future music directors. It will own the hall it plays in, as it now doesn't. And it will save money, because it now won't have to pay a share of Lincoln Center's planned reconstruction of its current home, Avery Fisher Hall.

But how will Lincoln Center fill Fisher when the Philharmonic leaves? How many heads will roll when Carnegie Hall and the Philharmonic merge their operations? What happens to all the musical groups -- from New York and elsewhere -- that now perform at Carnegie?
Nobody can answer all these questions yet, but two things about the planetary shift strike me forcefully. First, the CEOs of Carnegie and the Philharmonic talk about the merger in different ways. Press reports of an emerging "strain" between them don't seem quite right; they talked differently even on June 2, when both were interviewed on the radio. For Robert Harth, executive and artistic director of Carnegie Hall, the merger was "an opportunity for innovative programming." For Zarin Mehta, executive director of the Philharmonic, it was all about his own concerns -- the money, most of all, and the need he sees for orchestras to own the halls they play in.

And last week, when I spoke to both of them, they still talked differently, though Mr. Mehta readily agreed that his programming in Carnegie could go in new directions. Carnegie Hall, with no orchestra of its own, presents orchestras from out of town, some world-famous; Mr. Mehta would happily create coherent concert series with the Philharmonic and these visitors, and with leading soloists as well.
But when I asked him what Carnegie gained from the merger, he answered that it gained the Philharmonic. "Carnegie Hall gets a major orchestra as a constant factor all through the season," he said, and showed me what he felt were empty nights on Carnegie's published schedule for next year. Mr. Harth, by contrast, said the hall was rarely dark, except for 70 nights left empty purposely for maintenance. When I asked if the merger could be difficult, Mr. Mehta said "only on the surface." Mr. Harth, perhaps more manfully, agreed that staff and members of both boards would have to go (though it would be "premature" to say much more than that).
But then the two directors also said they'd been talking for months. They both are widely known as smart and decent; they have years to work out all the details. Though it's clear the Philharmonic is the mover here. It proposed the merger, and contacted the chairman of Carnegie's board. Mr. Harth told me he heard about the proposition from his board, not from Mr. Mehta, which might not comfort people who admire him and worry he might be boxed into a corner.

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Then secondly, I'm struck by how bad the feeling seems to be between Lincoln Center and the Philharmonic. Again, you can't believe everything you read -- press reports that Lincoln Center wants to charge the orchestra with formal breach of contract can be traced to nothing more than angry talk in private. Still, there are people close to the Philharmonic who think that Lincoln Center -- a home for many arts -- doesn't, as an umbrella institution, know music very well.
And there are people close to Lincoln Center who say the Philharmonic hasn't much cooperated with Lincoln Center as a corporate entity or with the other arts organizations that are also Lincoln Center's constituents: the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Ballet, the New York City Opera, the Juilliard School, and other groups offering jazz, film, theater and chamber music. Lincoln Center, under its own name, presents major concerts and produces an important summer festival; it even runs its own orchestra, which plays the Mostly Mozart series every year (and which some people close to the Philharmonic say isn't very good).
Reynold Levy, Lincoln Center's impressive president, told me that Avery Fisher can be filled with lots of "really tantalizing possibilities" -- extended residencies by visiting orchestras, minifestivals, spoken-word events, educational programs, and lucrative rentals (possibly for school or TV functions) that are now ruled out because the Philharmonic gets first crack at scheduling.

Mr. Levy also said that there's "an enormous amount of cooperative activity" at Lincoln Center, but I think the glass is more half empty than half full. Take the celebrations, this past season, of the 200th birthday of the composer Berlioz. They were held separately, by the Met, the Philharmonic and on Lincoln Center's own "Great Performers" series. But they were never linked together; they weren't publicized as a group, or cross-promoted with, perhaps, discounted tickets for anyone who went to all of them.
The Philharmonic is leaving Lincoln Center; the New York City Opera hopes to leave; a much-debated plan for redevelopment (including the Fisher reconstruction) has been delayed by the economy. "I think Lincoln Center is changing," says Mr. Levy, but it looks as if it's troubled. Why -- as a supposedly unified institution -- does it exist at all? Mr. Levy needs to lead some grand cooperation, to prove that Lincoln Center can be more than just the sum of all its disconnected parts.