Short Takes : Masur to Take Post Earlier

Conductor Kurt Masur, named in April to direct the New York Philharmonic, will begin a season earlier than expected.

“I am very happy,” Masur, 63, said Monday. “It means we have no time in between to wait for something.”

Masur, also music director of the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig, Germany, and a guest conductor of the London Philharmonic, was to begin in the 1992-93 season.

Instead, he will conduct opening night next fall and the first and third weeks of the season, which were to have been conducted by Leonard Bernstein, who died earlier this year. Masur will conduct nine more weeks during the season.

Masur is here to conduct Mendelssohn’s “Elijah” this week. It was to have been led by Bernstein.