Featuring:
- Olivier Messiaen Hymne
- Toru Takemitsu To the Edge of Dream
- Peter Sculthorpe Nourlangie
- Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 1 in D major
John Williams - Guitarist
Oleg Caetani - Conductor
The first 'official' concert of the season by MSO. This was one of the very first concert that I wanted to subscribe to. The reason was not the chance to see John Williams, but it was for the Mahler 1. I wanted to experience the blazing finale of Mahler's first symphony live. Not from the recordings. It also marked more than one year since I first discovered Mahler's music and his first symphony is the very first complete symphony that I listened to in full. The live Mahler was amazing, more about that later. Let's start from the first half of the concert.
The concert started with a piece by French composer, Olivier Messiaen - whose "Quartet for The End of Time" will I attend later this year. The piece is titled 'Hymne'. The piece is certainly more modern, not your average full of melody Romantic music, and there are some interesting passages in the music. However, at times, I could not catch up with the sudden change of mood and themes. This is a kind of piece that I believe need repeated listening to be appreciated better.
The second piece of the program is the one that I'm having trouble with. Takemitsu's work - noted as complex in harmony by John Williams himself and also the writer of the program notes - is a little too complex for me to enjoy. I have no other impression from this piece and for the whole time when the orchestra played the piece, I only paid attention to how John Williams played the guitar. I discovered some techniques on how to play a guitar (note that I have no idea on how to play guitar). His technique is amazing and every note is crystal clear.
The third piece pleased me the most out of the first half of the concert. Nourlangie is a depiction of Sculthorpe's feelings about Australia Kakadu National Park. It is an amazing piece of work and I loved it. The piece began slowly but yet it created a sense of being in a wide space and the solo guitar suddenly played a very nice melody - I guess it must be the folk song of Torres Strait islander. And then you heard some birds sound from the strings. A very nice effect and again it created the illusion that you are really outdoors. Then after a while, the percussion player joined the fun and played duet with Williams. The music got faster and faster just as what you expected from a movement marked "Poco Estatico". After that, the melody that we first heard from the solo guitar is now taken up by the violins and what fine melody it is!
When the piece ended, both Caetani and Williams gestured to someone in the audience, and guess who, Peter Sculthorpe in the audience. Knowing that the composer is there, the applause got louder and the composer himself looked very touched with the reception that he got.
Now for the Mahler himself, it was really really good. I thought Kubelik's recording of it is really good already, but this concert just reminded me that the best music is indeed live music. All of the sound produced by the orchestra is just superb with the woodwinds not over-powered by the brass. I am just amazed how beautiful the delicate woodwinds passages that I have not noticed before in the recording. The tempo itself is just right to my enjoyment and Caetani - conducting without the score - emphasised the contrast of the dynamics perfectly. Mahler's melody in the first movement is so infectious that I almost sang the lyric from "Ging heut morgen ubers Feld". The second movement was also well done, I enjoyed the Trio of this movement very much. The double bass solo that opened the funeral march of the third movement was also marvelous. Furthermore, because of this concert, I can further my enjoyment listening to this movement by paying more attention to the timpani strikes and the funeral march theme played by the woodwinds. The finale itself started out very loud - the loudest that music has been played in my concert experience - and played amazingly by the orchestra throughout. I especially treasured the lyric passages between the stormy opening of this movement and the second coda of the movement (when the trombone first announced the triumphant march of the very end of the symphony). The very end of the symphony was just unbelievable. What a feast of sound! When you listen to the triumphant march, you can almost believe that you overcome every problems that you will face. The audience roared right after the very last note was played. A very memorable experience that I will treasure for long time to come.
Next concert will be in 3 weeks time: the mighty Verdi's requiem. I need to start getting a recording of it now.
Monday, 10 March 2008
Thursday, 6 March 2008
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 1 March 2008 - Nigel Kennedy plays Mozart and Beethoven
Featuring:
- Johann Sebastian Bach Partita No. 3 in E major, BWV 1006 - Prelude (in doubt)
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Violin Concerto No. 4 in D major, K. 218
- Bela Bartok Three pieces for duo violins
- Ludwig van Beethoven Violin Concerto in D major
- Vittorio Monti Czardas
- Jimi Hendrix Purple Haze
Nigel Kennedy - Director and Soloist
What a night! From the beginning of the concert, I thought that the night was going to be something special and to be remembered for a long time. And I am not mistaken. This concert tops the magnificent Stephen Hough concert with MSO when he played Saint Saens' Piano Concerto No. 5 'Egyptian'. This is the best concert I've attended since I started going to classical music concerts at the beginning of last year.
Nigel Kennedy came at the stage a little bit late and guess what, he started by playing an encore. After some greetings and jokes with the audience, he started to play a Bach piece. It was wonderful to watch him with his not-so-conventional outfit, spiky hair, playing the Bach. I'm not sure on the piece, but after matching it against the collection of Sonata and Partita for Violin by Bach, I think it's the Prelude from the third Partita. This is because I remembered there are some passages in the piece that reminds me of Vivaldi's summer and that Prelude has it.
After that, again, a few jokes, Nigel started to play Mozart's 4th violin concerto. The tempo is on fast side - faster than the tempo that Anne Sophie Mutter employed with her newest recordings of the piece. I am very familiar with Mutter's version and listened to it before the concert. Nigel conducted the orchestra (actually, he played the first violin orchestra part also) and his approach is not conventional but yet very interesting. He stressed some of the lighter notes which are usually left lingered in Mutter's recording. The biggest surprise for me in the first movement of the concerto is the Cadenza itself. Kennedy played his own cadenza and it was wonderful. You can listen to some of his cadenza in his website. I especially loved the pastoral, sonorous - almost religious - feelings when the violin in its highest range playing alongside harpsichord and woodwinds which played the very first notes of the violin concerto. I like the cadenza very much.
Digressing a bit, Nigel plans to launch the CD of the same program that he played the other night. He has recorded both the Mozart and Beethoven violin concertos and you can take a sneak listen to his recordings from here. In that website, you can also view to his video interview. In there, you can actually listen to the snippet of Nigel's cadenza of the first movement of Mozart's 4th violin concerto from 03:08 to 04:23 (listen to magnificent blend of woodwinds, harpsichord and the solo violin!)
After some applause at the end of the first movement, we moved on to the second movement. Here again Nigel played sweetly and surprised me again with his cadenza towards the end of the second movement. Again, the mood seems to be the same with the first movement cadenza. However, this time, instead of accompanied by woodwinds and harpsichord, the solo violin is accompanied by a double bass pizzicato and very soft strings. You can listen to the cadenza by previewing this track from here.
Moving to the finale, I couldn't remember the exact cadenza from this movement since the Rondo theme kept coming back to me. But this movement was also gorgeous.
After the Mozart's concerto, he asked MSO's concertmaster - Wilma Smith - to play a duet of Bartok's little violin pieces with him. They played three pieces and all of the pieces are pretty short, virtuostic, and I found it pretty humorous at times. Intermission followed after this piece.
Beethoven's mighty violin concerto was next. Prepared for anything after the Mozart's violin concerto, I am not really surprised when the timpanist opened up the piece with slightly faster tempo (refer to 06:52 in the video in the above site). The tempo is on fast side and what impressed me the most is the cadenza. I'm not sure if it was written by Nigel himself, or it was really Fritz Kreisler's cadenza (as listed in Nigel's website). But what I can tell you is at one point during the cadenza, I thought there are 2 violins playing at the same time. At this point, I diverted my eyes of Nigel to see whether there were any string players of the orchestra playing at the same time. And as you know it, there weren't any players playing their strings. The way Nigel played the cadenza really impressed me, most of the time he played 2 different themes of the violin concerto at the same time.
The second movement was also very interesting. Nigel played the movement a tad SLOWER than the Larghetto marking as indicated by Beethoven. To some the movement might seem to be dragging, but I enjoy the slow almost introspective feeling that I got. The finale attached the second movement was on FIRE. The rondo theme is of course still very nice, the gentleman that sat next to me - to my annoyance - tapped his feet to the rhythm. The cadenza it self was the one that really set this movement on FIRE. After the cadenza, my heart was pumping so fast that I almost could not sit still anymore. When the woodwinds announced the finale of the whole work by the rondo theme, all the music just sounded so beautiful and I at that point wished the music never ended. The hall erupted to huge applause right after the very last note was played. You can see the similar but not the same scene that I saw in the concert starting at around 09:06 to 10:18 (and yes, Nigel wore that same almost ridiculous outfit in our concert as well).
After some little chat, encores followed. Czardas by Monti was arranged by Nigel and he played it with the orchestra. I must admit that the arrangement was not really faithful to the original score as sometimes I heard Beethoven's tune in his violin concerto in Czardas! The arrangement also at one point instructed one violinist to play her violin in the same way that you played guitar (I forgot the musical term for it). In that same passage, the harpsichord joined the fun and play a little trio with Nigel and the violinist that played her violin in guitar way.
The last encore piece was Nigel's arrangement of Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze. I'm not familiar at all with Jimi Hendrix music, so I can't comment how truthful it is to the original music, but I also enjoyed it. In the middle of the piece, Nigel went offstage and played the music in the middle of audience. And when he got back to the stage, after playing a while, the whole orchestra stood and kept playing music until they all disappeared to the backstage. Huge applause followed and the whole musicians returned back to the stage and took their bows.
To sum up, the best and longest concert I've been to (the concert was about 02:45 hours with the interval included). Very happy to have attended the concert and will go to next Nigel's concert.
Next concert: John Williams in action + Mahler's 1st symphony in 3 1/2 hours time.
- Johann Sebastian Bach Partita No. 3 in E major, BWV 1006 - Prelude (in doubt)
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Violin Concerto No. 4 in D major, K. 218
- Bela Bartok Three pieces for duo violins
- Ludwig van Beethoven Violin Concerto in D major
- Vittorio Monti Czardas
- Jimi Hendrix Purple Haze
Nigel Kennedy - Director and Soloist
What a night! From the beginning of the concert, I thought that the night was going to be something special and to be remembered for a long time. And I am not mistaken. This concert tops the magnificent Stephen Hough concert with MSO when he played Saint Saens' Piano Concerto No. 5 'Egyptian'. This is the best concert I've attended since I started going to classical music concerts at the beginning of last year.
Nigel Kennedy came at the stage a little bit late and guess what, he started by playing an encore. After some greetings and jokes with the audience, he started to play a Bach piece. It was wonderful to watch him with his not-so-conventional outfit, spiky hair, playing the Bach. I'm not sure on the piece, but after matching it against the collection of Sonata and Partita for Violin by Bach, I think it's the Prelude from the third Partita. This is because I remembered there are some passages in the piece that reminds me of Vivaldi's summer and that Prelude has it.
After that, again, a few jokes, Nigel started to play Mozart's 4th violin concerto. The tempo is on fast side - faster than the tempo that Anne Sophie Mutter employed with her newest recordings of the piece. I am very familiar with Mutter's version and listened to it before the concert. Nigel conducted the orchestra (actually, he played the first violin orchestra part also) and his approach is not conventional but yet very interesting. He stressed some of the lighter notes which are usually left lingered in Mutter's recording. The biggest surprise for me in the first movement of the concerto is the Cadenza itself. Kennedy played his own cadenza and it was wonderful. You can listen to some of his cadenza in his website. I especially loved the pastoral, sonorous - almost religious - feelings when the violin in its highest range playing alongside harpsichord and woodwinds which played the very first notes of the violin concerto. I like the cadenza very much.
Digressing a bit, Nigel plans to launch the CD of the same program that he played the other night. He has recorded both the Mozart and Beethoven violin concertos and you can take a sneak listen to his recordings from here. In that website, you can also view to his video interview. In there, you can actually listen to the snippet of Nigel's cadenza of the first movement of Mozart's 4th violin concerto from 03:08 to 04:23 (listen to magnificent blend of woodwinds, harpsichord and the solo violin!)
After some applause at the end of the first movement, we moved on to the second movement. Here again Nigel played sweetly and surprised me again with his cadenza towards the end of the second movement. Again, the mood seems to be the same with the first movement cadenza. However, this time, instead of accompanied by woodwinds and harpsichord, the solo violin is accompanied by a double bass pizzicato and very soft strings. You can listen to the cadenza by previewing this track from here.
Moving to the finale, I couldn't remember the exact cadenza from this movement since the Rondo theme kept coming back to me. But this movement was also gorgeous.
After the Mozart's concerto, he asked MSO's concertmaster - Wilma Smith - to play a duet of Bartok's little violin pieces with him. They played three pieces and all of the pieces are pretty short, virtuostic, and I found it pretty humorous at times. Intermission followed after this piece.
Beethoven's mighty violin concerto was next. Prepared for anything after the Mozart's violin concerto, I am not really surprised when the timpanist opened up the piece with slightly faster tempo (refer to 06:52 in the video in the above site). The tempo is on fast side and what impressed me the most is the cadenza. I'm not sure if it was written by Nigel himself, or it was really Fritz Kreisler's cadenza (as listed in Nigel's website). But what I can tell you is at one point during the cadenza, I thought there are 2 violins playing at the same time. At this point, I diverted my eyes of Nigel to see whether there were any string players of the orchestra playing at the same time. And as you know it, there weren't any players playing their strings. The way Nigel played the cadenza really impressed me, most of the time he played 2 different themes of the violin concerto at the same time.
The second movement was also very interesting. Nigel played the movement a tad SLOWER than the Larghetto marking as indicated by Beethoven. To some the movement might seem to be dragging, but I enjoy the slow almost introspective feeling that I got. The finale attached the second movement was on FIRE. The rondo theme is of course still very nice, the gentleman that sat next to me - to my annoyance - tapped his feet to the rhythm. The cadenza it self was the one that really set this movement on FIRE. After the cadenza, my heart was pumping so fast that I almost could not sit still anymore. When the woodwinds announced the finale of the whole work by the rondo theme, all the music just sounded so beautiful and I at that point wished the music never ended. The hall erupted to huge applause right after the very last note was played. You can see the similar but not the same scene that I saw in the concert starting at around 09:06 to 10:18 (and yes, Nigel wore that same almost ridiculous outfit in our concert as well).
After some little chat, encores followed. Czardas by Monti was arranged by Nigel and he played it with the orchestra. I must admit that the arrangement was not really faithful to the original score as sometimes I heard Beethoven's tune in his violin concerto in Czardas! The arrangement also at one point instructed one violinist to play her violin in the same way that you played guitar (I forgot the musical term for it). In that same passage, the harpsichord joined the fun and play a little trio with Nigel and the violinist that played her violin in guitar way.
The last encore piece was Nigel's arrangement of Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze. I'm not familiar at all with Jimi Hendrix music, so I can't comment how truthful it is to the original music, but I also enjoyed it. In the middle of the piece, Nigel went offstage and played the music in the middle of audience. And when he got back to the stage, after playing a while, the whole orchestra stood and kept playing music until they all disappeared to the backstage. Huge applause followed and the whole musicians returned back to the stage and took their bows.
To sum up, the best and longest concert I've been to (the concert was about 02:45 hours with the interval included). Very happy to have attended the concert and will go to next Nigel's concert.
Next concert: John Williams in action + Mahler's 1st symphony in 3 1/2 hours time.
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