If you've been listening to ABC Classic FM in the past week or so, you must know that ABC is doing a poll on which symphony is Australia's favourite. As with any 'top-100' surveys, there'll be bias in the final result. However, it's still interesting to see the result.
I'm very surprised to find out that Beethoven 9 did not take the title, and instead the other 9th symphony, by Dvorak that is, actually occupied the number one spot. IMHO, Dvorak 9 is NOT as interesting as his 7th or 8th symphonies. Sure, the 2nd movement is lovely, but I've always been more attracted to the opening of the last movement of the symphony. Anyway, as much as I love Dvorak 9, I don't think it's better than say Mozart's Jupiter (finishes at #12), Brahms' 4 (#20), or Beethoven 3 (#8) or 5 (#6). Call me a snob, I don't think Saint-Saens' Organ symphony should be at #4 too. Again, I love that symphony very much, but it's less sophisticated than any of Mahler's symphonies, dare I say.
I am more interested in the final ranking of a particular composer's symphonies. Let's start with Beethoven: almost all his symphonies made into the list, only the 1st missed out. The final finishing order is: 9, 6, 7, 5, 3, 8, 4 and 2. It's pretty accurate with popular myth: the odd numbered symphonies are better than the even ones (apart from the Pastorale). No one would agree with me but I enjoy the 4th and 8th symphonies better than Beethoven 7. And I think Beethoven 1 is good enough to squeeze in to top 100.
What about Mahler? There has been large number of discussions in ABC message boards regarding Mahler and opinions range from him creating random noise to the best masterpieces ever. Again, almost all of his completed symphonies (the 7 missed out) made it into the top 100, and the final order is: 2, 5, 1, 4, 8, 3, 9, 6, and Das Lied von der Erde. This for me is a controversy. Being a Mahlerian (or Mahlerite), I cannot take an order which lists the 1st and the 4th symphonies to be better than the 9th (!), 6th (!!) and Das Lied von der Erde (!!!). Having said that, I couldn't come up with any personal ranking of Mahler's symphonies. My way of classifying Mahler's symphonies are to categorise the symphonies as a Masterpiece, Great, or Good symphony. The Masterpieces are: (based on the order of composition) 2, 5, 6, Das Lied von Der Erde, and 9. The Greats are: 1, 3 (the last movement is a Masterpiece), 4 (the slow movement is a Masterpiece). Finally, the Goods are the rest: 7 and 8. I can sort of understand why people don't really like the pessimistic symphonies of Mahler: 6, DLvdE, and 9 just simply because of their pessimist nature. For me, these symphonies are the hardest for me to 'get', and it's easy to give up on listening to them after only one or two tries. Let me just say this: you're missing out on some of the most sublime music ever written if you gave up on this piece too soon.
Mozart? I'm always happy with a ranking that ranks the Jupiter higher than the 40th :). In the list, the final order is: 41, 40, 39, 38, 29, 25, 35 and 36. Fair ranking, although if I would to come up with the ranking based on those 8 symphonies, I would rank them in reverse order of their numbers.
I'm disappointed to see Brahms and Bruckner to be outside top 20. Another heart break is not to see Schumann's 2nd and 4th symphonies, and Kalinnikov's 1st symphony in the list.
Sunday 20 September 2009
Monday 14 September 2009
Australian Chamber Orchestra concert 13 September 2009 - Marwood, Mozart & Mendelssohn
Featuring:
- Mozart Serenata notturna, K. 239
- John Kinsella Prelude and Toccata - Australian Premiere
- Mendelssohn Sinfonia No. 12 in G minor
- Carl Vine XX
- Schumann Cello concerto (arr. as Violin Concerto by Orlando Jopling) - Australian Premiere
- Osvaldo Golijov - Last Round (first movement)
In contrast to the MSO concert which I was very much looking forward to yesterday, this ACO concert is at the bottom of my excitement list out of ACO concerts this season. There are several reasons to this: (1) I don't know any of the music advertised apart from Schumann's Cello concerto - which is not my favourite cello concerto. (2) Compositions by young Mozart and Mendelssohn are usually, simply put, boring. (3) I have never heard about Kinsella. (4) Schumann Cello Concerto transcribed as Violin Concerto for some reason, doesn't appeal much to me. Despite all of these reasons, this concert proved that I was a fool to prejudge music before listening to them and I enjoyed this concert immensely. Add to that, ACO actually played 2 more programs (Carl Vine's and Golijov's pieces) than the advertised program in the season brochure. Good on them!
Mozart's youth work, Serenata notturna, K. 239 opened up the concert. From the bouncy opening rhythms, quite similar to his 4th Violin Concerto I should point out, this piece delights the audience by its playful main theme which comes back several times in the first movement. Scored for strings and timpani, it's very captivating to listen to the timpani sound contrasted against the rest of the strings. Particularly striking is the timpani solo played on top of pizzicato strings. While the 2nd movement is charming with a lovely trio for string quartet accompanied by the rest of the orchestra, I'm sure the audience will remember the last movement the most. The main theme, which was stated a couple of times in this Rondo movement, is followed by several dramatic pauses, in which the leader of each section would improvise playing musical jokes on their own or play little duets, trios, or even quartets amongst them. My favourites are the double bass and the timpani improvisations. The good thing about these improvisations is that most audience understand that they're supposed to be jokes, and gave a few chuckles after each improvisation.
After the playful and light-hearted Mozart, we're treated with John Kinsella's Prelude and Toccata. A much more serious tone piece, I was really impressed with the Toccata section in which seemingly endless ostinato passages full of running semiquavers are played with extreme contrast of each other, sometimes pianissimo, other times fortissimo. This piece certainly requires a considerable virtuosity from every orchestra players and ACO nailed every fugal-like entry to perfection. The big question mark of unresolved chord that ended the piece is the only bar of music that I don't really like from this piece.
Probably the weakest performance of this concert is of Mendelssohn's String Symphony No. 12. I'm not really fond of the fugue in the first movement of the piece, but I enjoyed the 2nd movement immensely due to the creative writing of a solo viola and cello playing a counter melody against the main theme of the movement played by the rest of the strings. The final movement is fast paced, ending with breakneck speed in the coda and the work ended with the same 3 notes of the first movement of Mozart's 40th Symphony, which is written in the same key (a tribute from Mendelssohn?)
Carl Vine's XX (pronounced eiks-eiks) is a piece written for a solo violin and strings. Marwood stepped in as the solo violin, playing a short passage, echoed by the orchestra, another passage (more complex this time), another echo, and yet another passage (and even more complex) and echo. After that, the solo violin plays a rhapsody-like passage on top of the orchestra accompaniment before it joins back with the orchestra playing unison. Rhythmic is an accurate word to describe this piece and there's even a passage so similar to the opening of Stravinsky's march in the Rite of Spring (right after the introduction). You can watch an ABC short news about this piece here. The Stravinsky bit that I was referring to is played by the orchestra at 01:45 mark. As you can gather from the ABC feature, Carl Vine meant this piece to be a tongue-in-cheek piece, and the end of this piece is a rather unexpected musical joke.
The advertised heart of this concert is Schumann's Cello Concerto arranged as Violin Concerto and reduced set of instruments (no woodwinds or brass). Marwood played the solo part beautifully without going too overly sentimental. I loved the duets between the violin solo and the principal cello in the second movement, while at the same time feeling slightly awkward with woodwind melodies played by the strings. In the finale, Marwood's gorgeous playing and tone really enhanced the enjoyment of those highly lyrical passages. Murray Black wrote a very good review on this in The Australian.
Finally, the audience was served with the first movement of Golijov's Last Round. The marking of this Argentinian composer is an interesting one: Movido, urgente: Macho, cool and dangerous in the program notes. The whole work is based on this simple theme, which was varied with different rhythm, tempo, texture, and colour. As a musical portrayal of a wild tango, ACO attacked this music in a similar fashion with plenty of energy without losing their focus. A great performance to end the concert.
Summing up, I enjoyed this concert very much. ACO's wonderful programming really shone through here with audience being lead away from their comfort zone to try listening to some more challenging works. This would probably convince me enough to renew my subscription next year.
- Mozart Serenata notturna, K. 239
- John Kinsella Prelude and Toccata - Australian Premiere
- Mendelssohn Sinfonia No. 12 in G minor
- Carl Vine XX
- Schumann Cello concerto (arr. as Violin Concerto by Orlando Jopling) - Australian Premiere
- Osvaldo Golijov - Last Round (first movement)
In contrast to the MSO concert which I was very much looking forward to yesterday, this ACO concert is at the bottom of my excitement list out of ACO concerts this season. There are several reasons to this: (1) I don't know any of the music advertised apart from Schumann's Cello concerto - which is not my favourite cello concerto. (2) Compositions by young Mozart and Mendelssohn are usually, simply put, boring. (3) I have never heard about Kinsella. (4) Schumann Cello Concerto transcribed as Violin Concerto for some reason, doesn't appeal much to me. Despite all of these reasons, this concert proved that I was a fool to prejudge music before listening to them and I enjoyed this concert immensely. Add to that, ACO actually played 2 more programs (Carl Vine's and Golijov's pieces) than the advertised program in the season brochure. Good on them!
Mozart's youth work, Serenata notturna, K. 239 opened up the concert. From the bouncy opening rhythms, quite similar to his 4th Violin Concerto I should point out, this piece delights the audience by its playful main theme which comes back several times in the first movement. Scored for strings and timpani, it's very captivating to listen to the timpani sound contrasted against the rest of the strings. Particularly striking is the timpani solo played on top of pizzicato strings. While the 2nd movement is charming with a lovely trio for string quartet accompanied by the rest of the orchestra, I'm sure the audience will remember the last movement the most. The main theme, which was stated a couple of times in this Rondo movement, is followed by several dramatic pauses, in which the leader of each section would improvise playing musical jokes on their own or play little duets, trios, or even quartets amongst them. My favourites are the double bass and the timpani improvisations. The good thing about these improvisations is that most audience understand that they're supposed to be jokes, and gave a few chuckles after each improvisation.
After the playful and light-hearted Mozart, we're treated with John Kinsella's Prelude and Toccata. A much more serious tone piece, I was really impressed with the Toccata section in which seemingly endless ostinato passages full of running semiquavers are played with extreme contrast of each other, sometimes pianissimo, other times fortissimo. This piece certainly requires a considerable virtuosity from every orchestra players and ACO nailed every fugal-like entry to perfection. The big question mark of unresolved chord that ended the piece is the only bar of music that I don't really like from this piece.
Probably the weakest performance of this concert is of Mendelssohn's String Symphony No. 12. I'm not really fond of the fugue in the first movement of the piece, but I enjoyed the 2nd movement immensely due to the creative writing of a solo viola and cello playing a counter melody against the main theme of the movement played by the rest of the strings. The final movement is fast paced, ending with breakneck speed in the coda and the work ended with the same 3 notes of the first movement of Mozart's 40th Symphony, which is written in the same key (a tribute from Mendelssohn?)
Carl Vine's XX (pronounced eiks-eiks) is a piece written for a solo violin and strings. Marwood stepped in as the solo violin, playing a short passage, echoed by the orchestra, another passage (more complex this time), another echo, and yet another passage (and even more complex) and echo. After that, the solo violin plays a rhapsody-like passage on top of the orchestra accompaniment before it joins back with the orchestra playing unison. Rhythmic is an accurate word to describe this piece and there's even a passage so similar to the opening of Stravinsky's march in the Rite of Spring (right after the introduction). You can watch an ABC short news about this piece here. The Stravinsky bit that I was referring to is played by the orchestra at 01:45 mark. As you can gather from the ABC feature, Carl Vine meant this piece to be a tongue-in-cheek piece, and the end of this piece is a rather unexpected musical joke.
The advertised heart of this concert is Schumann's Cello Concerto arranged as Violin Concerto and reduced set of instruments (no woodwinds or brass). Marwood played the solo part beautifully without going too overly sentimental. I loved the duets between the violin solo and the principal cello in the second movement, while at the same time feeling slightly awkward with woodwind melodies played by the strings. In the finale, Marwood's gorgeous playing and tone really enhanced the enjoyment of those highly lyrical passages. Murray Black wrote a very good review on this in The Australian.
Finally, the audience was served with the first movement of Golijov's Last Round. The marking of this Argentinian composer is an interesting one: Movido, urgente: Macho, cool and dangerous in the program notes. The whole work is based on this simple theme, which was varied with different rhythm, tempo, texture, and colour. As a musical portrayal of a wild tango, ACO attacked this music in a similar fashion with plenty of energy without losing their focus. A great performance to end the concert.
Summing up, I enjoyed this concert very much. ACO's wonderful programming really shone through here with audience being lead away from their comfort zone to try listening to some more challenging works. This would probably convince me enough to renew my subscription next year.
Sunday 13 September 2009
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 12 September 2009 - Unquiet Hearts
Featuring:
- Beethoven Coriolan Overture
- Mozart Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola, K. 364
- Brahms Symphony No. 3
Thomas Zehetmair - Violin/Director
Ruth Killius - Viola
This is one of the concerts that I've looked forward to attending this season. How can I not when the program consists of one of Beethoven's finest overtures, my favourite Mozart's concerto, and a Brahms symphony (although the 3rd is my least favourite). Combination of these masterpieces proved enough to attract large crowds at the recital centre with the upper seats were fully packed.
The concert started with heavy chords from Beethoven's aggressive Coriolan overture. Portraying a general going into the battle and his death at last, I think it's just appropriate playing this piece aggressively and attack those accented notes, which is exactly what Zehetmair did. Conducting with big gestures, Zehetmair also made effective use of the dramatic silence between chords to intensify the performance. The trimmed down MSO (only 4 rows of first violin instead of usual 5 or 6) played well and set up the playing standard for the rest of the concert.
A lovely Ruth Killius accompanied Zehetmair in Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante. This piece has a special place in my heart because of the gorgeous melody in the first movement, the depth and pathos of the second, and the cheeriness of the third. Most importantly, it's the interplay between the two soloists that I treasure the most. Listening to them is like listening to the most intimate conversation between two best friends.
Zehetmair, now acting as both soloist and conductor, started the first movement slower than what I accustomed to but to a great effect as it brings more majestic touch to this movement. Both the soloists then emerged from out of nowhere (one of the best moment in this piece!) and not facing each other, played the solo part. In fact they stayed that way until the cadenza when finally both soloists faced each other. It's almost like watching a courting act from Zehetmair to Killius. I'll spare the details of each movement and just say that they played brilliantly although Killius' viola sound was harder to pick up as it occasionally was dominated by the rest of the strings from both soloists and orchestra. Long applause followed.
I love all 4 Brahms' symphonies. But, the 3rd is my least favourite for a reason that I can't explain myself. I feel personal affinity towards the 1st, can't resist the beauty and the lyrical of the 2nd (esp. the arousing finale), and what can I do but be in awe of Brahms' genius in his 4th. Or maybe the recordings that I have? I don't know, but I can certainly say that this concert changed my opinion of this symphony in a positive way.
Zehetmair gave this symphony a grandeur, majestic, full-on lush romantic treatment and boy did it make a difference. Phrases were executed to perfection while losing none of the overall picture of the symphony. Extreme dynamics contrast was another feature of this performance. Those big moments in both first and last movements were more effective and gained additional majesty during those loud passages. It's easy to say that this might be an overblown interpretation, but it's not. It's intelligent, well-controlled reading and all the details are brought up. The performance was also helped by marvelous solos by MSO's woodwind section, and the main theme of the 3rd movement is nailed perfectly by the horns. Let me just talk a bit of the contrabassoon, which only joins the fun in the last movement. Its first entry provided extra colour to the symphony and for me that is the decisive point. Also, for the first time ever, I really felt the `letting go` passages that starts right after the big majestic chords ended. It's so good, that I think it has a Mahler-like quality to it. Although the symphony ended quietly, it was followed by an arousing applause. This is one performance that I will always remember when I listen to this symphony in the future.
To sum up, this concert delivered its potential and I thoroughly enjoyed every piece programmed. I have no problem with the hall acoustic (I was sitting at one of the seats in the balcony). Unfortunately I can't go to the next MSO concert in the Recital Centre series on November due to a positive unforeseeable circumstances. I'll look forward to MSO next appearances in this hall next year.
- Beethoven Coriolan Overture
- Mozart Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola, K. 364
- Brahms Symphony No. 3
Thomas Zehetmair - Violin/Director
Ruth Killius - Viola
This is one of the concerts that I've looked forward to attending this season. How can I not when the program consists of one of Beethoven's finest overtures, my favourite Mozart's concerto, and a Brahms symphony (although the 3rd is my least favourite). Combination of these masterpieces proved enough to attract large crowds at the recital centre with the upper seats were fully packed.
The concert started with heavy chords from Beethoven's aggressive Coriolan overture. Portraying a general going into the battle and his death at last, I think it's just appropriate playing this piece aggressively and attack those accented notes, which is exactly what Zehetmair did. Conducting with big gestures, Zehetmair also made effective use of the dramatic silence between chords to intensify the performance. The trimmed down MSO (only 4 rows of first violin instead of usual 5 or 6) played well and set up the playing standard for the rest of the concert.
A lovely Ruth Killius accompanied Zehetmair in Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante. This piece has a special place in my heart because of the gorgeous melody in the first movement, the depth and pathos of the second, and the cheeriness of the third. Most importantly, it's the interplay between the two soloists that I treasure the most. Listening to them is like listening to the most intimate conversation between two best friends.
Zehetmair, now acting as both soloist and conductor, started the first movement slower than what I accustomed to but to a great effect as it brings more majestic touch to this movement. Both the soloists then emerged from out of nowhere (one of the best moment in this piece!) and not facing each other, played the solo part. In fact they stayed that way until the cadenza when finally both soloists faced each other. It's almost like watching a courting act from Zehetmair to Killius. I'll spare the details of each movement and just say that they played brilliantly although Killius' viola sound was harder to pick up as it occasionally was dominated by the rest of the strings from both soloists and orchestra. Long applause followed.
I love all 4 Brahms' symphonies. But, the 3rd is my least favourite for a reason that I can't explain myself. I feel personal affinity towards the 1st, can't resist the beauty and the lyrical of the 2nd (esp. the arousing finale), and what can I do but be in awe of Brahms' genius in his 4th. Or maybe the recordings that I have? I don't know, but I can certainly say that this concert changed my opinion of this symphony in a positive way.
Zehetmair gave this symphony a grandeur, majestic, full-on lush romantic treatment and boy did it make a difference. Phrases were executed to perfection while losing none of the overall picture of the symphony. Extreme dynamics contrast was another feature of this performance. Those big moments in both first and last movements were more effective and gained additional majesty during those loud passages. It's easy to say that this might be an overblown interpretation, but it's not. It's intelligent, well-controlled reading and all the details are brought up. The performance was also helped by marvelous solos by MSO's woodwind section, and the main theme of the 3rd movement is nailed perfectly by the horns. Let me just talk a bit of the contrabassoon, which only joins the fun in the last movement. Its first entry provided extra colour to the symphony and for me that is the decisive point. Also, for the first time ever, I really felt the `letting go` passages that starts right after the big majestic chords ended. It's so good, that I think it has a Mahler-like quality to it. Although the symphony ended quietly, it was followed by an arousing applause. This is one performance that I will always remember when I listen to this symphony in the future.
To sum up, this concert delivered its potential and I thoroughly enjoyed every piece programmed. I have no problem with the hall acoustic (I was sitting at one of the seats in the balcony). Unfortunately I can't go to the next MSO concert in the Recital Centre series on November due to a positive unforeseeable circumstances. I'll look forward to MSO next appearances in this hall next year.
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