Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 6 October 2007 - The Great Tradition

Featuring:
- Carl Maria von Weber Oberon: Overture
- Robert Schumann Piano Concerto
- Richard Strauss Symphonia domestica

Alexander Lazarev - Conductor
Alexander Gavrylyuk - Piano

My last concert before I went into hectic period - assignments and exams. How was it? It was .. okay I guess and certainly not the highlight of the year for me. I sat at the box at the left of the hall with only limited view on the orchestra. I chose the seat due to financial reason and I wanted to have a look at the pianist in action.

The concert started with Weber's overture. I am only familiar with Weber from his two piano concertos, one of which (the 2nd) I attended in a concert back in August. The overture is quite popular although I haven't had a chance to listen to it. I approached it with fresh mind and the overture did not disappoint me. Full of melodies, nice build up and the overture concluded with loud bang in the end. There are parts of the overture that reminded me of Mendelssohn's Midsummer night's dream overture, but that might just me.

Now, the reason why I chose this concert - the Schumann's piano concerto. This work played by Sviatoslav Richter, is definitely one of my favorite piano concerto. It's a very lyrical work instead of virtuosic. I always love the main theme of first movements, the little dialogue between piano and orchestra in second movement and the finale. Back to the performance, it started out very well and the pianists entered at the right time (I've seen a number of pianists entered at the wrong time at the beginning of the piece). The tempo is a bit slow to my taste, but still acceptable. The pianist phrased most of the passages beautifully, but somehow the emotion is lacking? - I think. The cadenza was excellent, very much to my liking. The first movement ended perfectly with some of the audience clapped afterwards (!). The rest of the concerto was done very well, lacking a little big again in the emotional burst that I got from Richter's playing. We were given an encore by the pianist, a virtuoso show piece that seriously kicked the shit out of me. I'm not sure what piece it is, but my guess would be Liszt's or Ravel's. By the end of the piece, I'm convinced that the pianist is more of the virtuosic type rather than poetic type. Maybe that explains why the concerto wasn't quite lyrically done.

The last piece, Strauss' tone poem - Symphonia Domestica. I only know one work of Richard Strauss, the Also Sprach Zarathustra. The piece told an illustrious story of Strauss' daily life with his wife and his newly born baby. It is a one movement tone poem which can be divided into four parts. The beginning was good, until it reached the half way of the 2nd part, I'm kinda lost already. Then the piece moved on to the 3rd part which supposedly describing Love scene and Dreams and cares in adagio. I would say this adagio part is too loud for an adagio - it kinda diminished the impression that I might get if it is not very loud. The last part was joyous, and with 8 horns in the orchestra and large brass section, it's really really loud. At the very end of the piece, the conductor suddenly jumped and turned back to the audience, and make the ending gesture while facing us. The audience not expecting that, gave a bit of laugh in the end.

All in all, it was quite a good concert. I love the overture, the piano concerto was okay..the encore piece was amazing and the tone poem was okay again.

Aram Khachaturian's Violin Concerto in D minor

There are supposedly 4 big violin concertos in classical music repertoire - Beethoven's, Brahms', Mendelssohn's and Tchaikovsky's. I've listened and like all of them.

I always have a special affinity with Tchaikovsky's - one of the first piece that seduced me to Tchaikovsky's music due to its blazing finale. I have also always have a soft spot for Mendelssohn's due to its loveliness and gorgeous melodies throughout the whole concerto. The lively 3rd movement always made me smile whenever I listened to it. With the Brahms', how can one shake off the entrance of the violin solo in the first movement? It's so dramatic and yet so lyrical at the same time. Nothing but streams of gorgeous melodies follow after that. Unlike most people, Beethoven's - although it's still very great - is not my desert island violin concerto.

One month ago, when listening to live concert in radio, I came across Khachaturian's violin concerto. I wasn't expecting much at firs - only listening to the concert to wait for Brahms' 4th symphony, but how glad that I was proven wrong on that. The piece hooked me from the very first note until the very last. If one were to compare it against the big 4 violin concertos, it would be very much like Tchaikovsky's. Again as with the famous violin concertos, the main themes of each movement are so accessible - I couldn't get it out of my head after finishing the piece and it soon became my whistling tune for the rest of that day. I then went on to download a recording of it and listened to it again. I was thrilled with this piece and the lovely 2nd movement was now clearer to me than it was in the first listening. The breathtaking finale is still there and since then, this piece has retained its place in my violin concerto repertoire - alongside the big 4 violin concertos, Sibelius', Prokofiev's 2, Bruch's 1, 5 of Mozart's and Stravinsky's. I'm just a bit disappointed to find out that it's not as popular as I think it should be.