Featuring:
- Brahms Song of Destiny
- Wagner The Valkyrie: Wotan's Farewell and Magic Fire Music
- Brahms Symphony No. 2
John Wegner - Bass-baritone
Melbourne Symphony Chorus - chorusmaster: Jonathan Grieves-Smith
Tadaaki Otaka - Conductor
This was yet another non-brainer concert that I picked when I subscribed to MSO earlier this year. The original program consisted of much loved Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, Schoenberg's supposedly moving A survivor from Warsaw and Brahms' 2nd symphony. However, due to Caetani's sudden departure, MSO decided to change the program as well.
Stepping in is Tadaaki Otaka, Principal Guest Conductor of MSO next year. I'm indifferent with the program change, as I love Brahms' Song of Destiny (Schicksalslied) but I'm sad not to see Schubert's Unfinished symphony on the program. I'm fine with Wagner's music, so again, I'm not entirely too concerned with the program change. I've found it a bit ironic though to see both Brahms and Wagner the only two composers in the program given their notorious relation in the past.
I'm not sure if MSO's staff read this blog, but certainly my hope for better concert is fulfilled. From the first few bars of Brahms' Schicksalslied, I have the assurance feeling that the concert will go fine. I have sung Schicksalslied earlier this year and have a fairly good knowledge about the piece. Inspired by a well-known poem by Friedrich Hoelderlin (pardon the absence of umlaut), it described two contrasting aspects of heavenly and earthly live. In the beginning of the piece, you can already feel a sense of doom or threat from the ever presence timpani stroke as the background to the heavenly melody. As a matter of fact, these timpani strokes very much reminded me of the famous obsessive timpani strokes in the 2nd movement of Brahms' Requiem - Den alles Fleisch, es ist wie gras which was written around the same time. The chorus then came in and describing the heavenly life, pictured perfectly by schmaltzy strings and woodwinds dominated music. MSO strings and chorus touched hearts here, beautiful interpretation. Trombones interrupted before the choir started singing the second stanza, perhaps signalling doom events that will come soon. No major complaints so far :).
The music makes a brief return to the opening of the piece, before it's interrupted by trombones, winds, and timpani. From there on, all hell broke loose. It is unmistakably the doomed fate. Definitely a worthy setting of the tragic third stanza from the poem, "A place to rest isn't given to us. Suffering humans decline and blindly fall from one hour to the next, like water thrown from cliff to cliff, year after year, down into the Unknown". I particularly like the setting of "Wie Wasser von Klippe Zu Klippe geworfen, Jahrlang ins Ungewisse hinab". Here, the choir sing aggressive steady rhythm against quaver note of the strings. My conductor mentioned that here Brahms is picturing the steady cliffs in the choir while the strings represented the water being thrown away from one cliff to the other. In terms of the performance, I perhaps desired more aggression from the choir at this stage, but otherwise, it was a great performance. After this violent section, the music reverts back to the opening heavenly theme and ended beautifully.
As an orchestra, MSO played well. However, from time to time, the discipline of coming in together was rather poor. I still remembered the LPO concert a few months ago where the whole orchestra really moved like one and came in at exactly the same time. In this performance, MSO players might come in half a beat early and it's really disappointing when this happened. Another thing that I noticed was there was a MSO chorister singing in a concert with a visual-disability. I commend her for her dedication to rehearse and sing in the concert (She was holding what looked like Braille annotated music). I also commend MSO chorus to have her on board although it might be difficult to accommodate such person.
Next program: the end of Wagner's Valkyrie. It opened with huge burst from the orchestra and I'm pretty sure at one point the brass played fragments of the main theme from the Ride of the Valkyries (I could be wrong or just imagining things here :) ). John Wegner as Wotan is seriously electrifying. With his intensity and gripping commanding voice, he captured the audience attention throughout the performance. His voice is capable of rising above orchestra's fortissimo. Magic fire music has this catchy tune that caught my attention. Wagner also did not allow the music to just simply slammed down to the home key without doing some tinkerings with it - I guess this is the part that influenced Mahler.
Finally, we're back to Brahms again. Often described the sunniest of all Brahms' symphonies, the 2nd symphony indeed contains plenty beautiful melodies. Tadaaki Otaka conducted from memory and gave a great performance out of it despite my nitpicking: the lack of warmth and gentleness of the main melody of the 1st movement. He also didn't take the repeat of the 1st movement to my delight (I think this movement will be too long if the repeat is taken and the momentum is lost). The 2nd movement is much better with woodwinds section executed gorgeous phrases throughout. The tempo is a bit slower than what I usually used to, but to great effect: it brings out the little melodies in the quaver notes in both strings and winds. The 3rd movement is much more interesting now as Otaka gave a very much contrasting reading of both the melodic and the playful section of this piece. The last movement started out as a straightforward reading until the coda section where the tempo is halved but Otaka did a good job in accelerating the music in the end to great effect. Full brass sections blared out the joyful nature of this symphony and the symphony ends with 4 chords not unlike the end of Brahms' 1st symphony. A good performance that was well-received by the 85% Hamer Hall capacity audience.
With this kind of performance, I can probably expect a lot from Tadaaki Otaka's performances with MSO next year. To be honest, I have doubts whether he is a worthy successor to Caetani. Although I still have some reservations, I am now more reassured that the quality of MSO playing won't drop significantly. Ganbatte Otaka-san!
This is also MSO's last concert this season. Here's hoping for a better year in 2010. Finally, I want to bid farewell to MSO retiring musicians, Anthony Smith (double bass) and especially Rudolf Osadnik (principal second violin).
Monday 7 December 2009
Wednesday 2 December 2009
Anton Bruckner's Motets
Lately, for my choir practice purpose, I have been listening and singing to Bruckner motets. Prior to the introduction of these motets by the choir conductor, I am unaware of their existence. The only Bruckner music that I know (and love) is his Seventh Symphony which consists of one of the most beautiful mournful Adagio and the incredibly "nervous" Scherzo. What I know is that Bruckner wrote awesome music and I love how he used the brass sections in those two movements.
Back to his motets. His motets are sacred choral music, written mainly for SATB choir, and sometimes would include a soloist, an organ or even trombones. I don't know all of them, but my choir has been working with 5 of them: Locus iste, Os Justi, Tota pulchra es Maria, Ecce sacerdos magnus, and Afferentur Regi.
Locus iste is perhaps the simplest out of those 5 motets. It's a short 4-part voices piece that is usually used for a congregation of a church. Tota pulchra es Maria is written for a tenor soloist, an organ, and believe it or not, 9-part voices during one fff choir phrase. Afferentur Regi is perhaps my least favourite out of the five motets listed, maybe because the tenor part is more challenging :), and the main tune is not incredibly beautiful compare to the others.
Ecce sacerdos magnus is a killer piece for a choir. You either do it big (sing on top of your lung), or don't even bother doing it. It's a piece that guarantees a rousing reception if done extremely well. To do this, you must overcome a fff passage that is repeated three times in the piece. The tenors are basically requires to hit 14 consecutive 'tenor A' notes, and 3 more after that. In total, they are required to sing more than 50 notes of their highest range. Compare that to say Haydn's Nelson Mass which if memory serves me right, only require the tenors to sing the top A for only 3 times. You might think of doing falsetto for all of them, but remember that those notes are marked either 'ff' or 'fff' by Bruckner, and therefore you'll be pretty much inaudible if other sections sing using their chest voice. This would pretty much be a complete let down during a performance.
I have been holding back from discussing 'Os Justi' - because simply I love this piece the most. It's written for 8-part voices and it is so incredibly beautiful, heavenly, and heartfelt. This 5 minutes of music is definitely something that I won't think twice to include in my desert island disc. What makes it more interesting is that Bruckner wrote this motet in Lydian mode which basically means that he did not use a single sharp or flat note. (Thanks to this website in bringing my attention to this).
Since I have pretty much obsessed with 'Os Justi', I have been trying to find videos of choir performing this piece in youtube. Basically, the performance can be categorised as either using a small choir or big choir. This size factor can dramatically change the interpretation of this piece. The difference can be seen in these two videos big choir and very small choir. Granted the very small choir is of very high standard and the big choir is probably amateur and a fair comparison probably cannot be made here. What I want to point is that, with the small choir, the main things that strikes you are the phrasing, the tone quality and the clarity of each voice. With the big choir, you have enough voices to make the big moment really big (e.g. the end of the 'et lingua' fugue). So, depending on your preference, you might find more pleasure in one version than the other.
To sum up, Bruckner motets are heavenly. If you enjoy listening to choral music, you won't be disappointed with any of them that I listed here. Also, in the short future - after I finish my conquest of Mahler 10 - I will start listening to Bruckner's symphonies. Hopefully I have time to write about them as I discover them one by one.
Back to his motets. His motets are sacred choral music, written mainly for SATB choir, and sometimes would include a soloist, an organ or even trombones. I don't know all of them, but my choir has been working with 5 of them: Locus iste, Os Justi, Tota pulchra es Maria, Ecce sacerdos magnus, and Afferentur Regi.
Locus iste is perhaps the simplest out of those 5 motets. It's a short 4-part voices piece that is usually used for a congregation of a church. Tota pulchra es Maria is written for a tenor soloist, an organ, and believe it or not, 9-part voices during one fff choir phrase. Afferentur Regi is perhaps my least favourite out of the five motets listed, maybe because the tenor part is more challenging :), and the main tune is not incredibly beautiful compare to the others.
Ecce sacerdos magnus is a killer piece for a choir. You either do it big (sing on top of your lung), or don't even bother doing it. It's a piece that guarantees a rousing reception if done extremely well. To do this, you must overcome a fff passage that is repeated three times in the piece. The tenors are basically requires to hit 14 consecutive 'tenor A' notes, and 3 more after that. In total, they are required to sing more than 50 notes of their highest range. Compare that to say Haydn's Nelson Mass which if memory serves me right, only require the tenors to sing the top A for only 3 times. You might think of doing falsetto for all of them, but remember that those notes are marked either 'ff' or 'fff' by Bruckner, and therefore you'll be pretty much inaudible if other sections sing using their chest voice. This would pretty much be a complete let down during a performance.
I have been holding back from discussing 'Os Justi' - because simply I love this piece the most. It's written for 8-part voices and it is so incredibly beautiful, heavenly, and heartfelt. This 5 minutes of music is definitely something that I won't think twice to include in my desert island disc. What makes it more interesting is that Bruckner wrote this motet in Lydian mode which basically means that he did not use a single sharp or flat note. (Thanks to this website in bringing my attention to this).
Since I have pretty much obsessed with 'Os Justi', I have been trying to find videos of choir performing this piece in youtube. Basically, the performance can be categorised as either using a small choir or big choir. This size factor can dramatically change the interpretation of this piece. The difference can be seen in these two videos big choir and very small choir. Granted the very small choir is of very high standard and the big choir is probably amateur and a fair comparison probably cannot be made here. What I want to point is that, with the small choir, the main things that strikes you are the phrasing, the tone quality and the clarity of each voice. With the big choir, you have enough voices to make the big moment really big (e.g. the end of the 'et lingua' fugue). So, depending on your preference, you might find more pleasure in one version than the other.
To sum up, Bruckner motets are heavenly. If you enjoy listening to choral music, you won't be disappointed with any of them that I listed here. Also, in the short future - after I finish my conquest of Mahler 10 - I will start listening to Bruckner's symphonies. Hopefully I have time to write about them as I discover them one by one.
Tuesday 1 December 2009
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 30 November 2009 - Revolutions
Featuring:
- Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2
- Leif Segerstam Symphony No. 190 - UFO, under F & over World Premiere
- Beethoven Symphony No. 5
Stephen Kovacevich - Piano
Leif Segerstam - Conductor
This was one of the non-brainer concert that I picked when subscribing to MSO this season. Just look at the program: Brahms' masterpiece in piano concerto, Beethoven's 5th symphony; and finally Webern's piece Six Pieces for large orchestra. Oh well, they changed the Webern's to a strange symphony and replaced Caetani with the composer of this symphony. But, the soloist, world-renowned Stephen Kovacevich is still performing. The change in conductor shouldn't be that big of an impact to the concert, or so I thought.
My expectations were running high before the start of the concert, and yet I came out feeling bored and totally disappointed. This could be the worst MSO concert I attended this season. Very disappointing indeed when put in the context that the hall is quite full (I'd say 90% full).
Let's start with Brahms' second piano concerto. I've listened to some bits of Stephen Kovacevich's recording during the ABC concerto countdown few years back and I wasn't impressed at all. IIRC, I even turned off the radio at one stage because I couldn't stand his playing in the first movement anymore. He sounded like he was struggling with the technical demand of this piece and the natural flow of this piece was being taken away from it. Anyway, I kept my mind open during the performance, and within the first minute, I already felt a bit uneasy right after the opening cadenza of the soloist. There were a couple of wrong notes, and the playing was really insecure. It did not help also when the horn section fired some wrong notes after that. The tempo of this movement felt a little bit dragging and my favourite part of this movement -- right in the middle of this movement, when the soloist played a prayer-like melody accompanied by bass pizzicatos - was quite a let down. The rest of this movement was quite okay until we reached the end of this movement. I totally abhorred it when a conductor held the pause before the last chord too long for the sake of holding up the tension just for a bit more. The conductor did exactly that, and more after that in the later movements and in Beethoven's symphony. Instead of achieving a perfect tension-release moment, he succeeded making me utter 'ridiculous' and as a result, the home chord in the end felt underwhelming.
The soloist was better in the second movement; I actually enjoyed his agitated opening. However, the orchestra was rather tame in comparison to the soloist's aggression. "For god's sake", I thought, "come on, this music is in D MINOR. Where are all the tensions?". Fortunately, the central D major episode was much better. I loved how the soloist played the reverie-like passage here. The music now reverts back to D minor, and again, the orchestra sounded really tame. The coda of this movement is one of my favourite Brahms moment - the agitated piano and orchestra fighting each other with massive chords. The performance was okay, partly due to the piano swamped by the orchestra at that chord clashing moment.
Finally some gorgeous playing from the orchestra: David Berlin's cello solo in the third movement was glorious. Kovacevich shone for a few moments here, until he made a few mistakes during the long trills. I enjoyed the last movement the most, the dance like quality and cheerfulness was brought out wonderfully. I even commended Kovacevich for dramatically increased the tempo during the coda although the orchestra was lagging behind in the first few bars of its entry.
After the break, it was the time for Segerstam's 190th symphony. According to the note, he has composed 230 symphonies. Apparently the piece was inspired by a talk about UFO, and the interesting thing is that Segerstam did not conduct it during the performance. Instead, he played a piano in this piece which requires a super big orchestra with massive percussion section and a pair of harps and pianos. Markus Tomasi, the concertmaster of the evening, would some time stood up and gave indications to the orchestra. Other members who also stood up are the principals of piccolo and flute, although it wasn't clear why.
The piece itself was interesting in producing different sort of noises, especially the percussion section which included 2 sort of hammers: the big hammer that one would use in Mahler's 6th symphony; and the smaller hammer that you usually used in your household to fix stuff. Musically, I was bored after a few minutes, and the piece did not attract me at all. It went on for around 15-20 minutes (I did not look at the time) and through out the performance I was thinking that it's such a waste to use this massive size orchestra to play this sort of music. That pretty much sums up what I thought of this symphony.
Someone once said that Beethoven's symphonies are fool-proof. It's very hard to mess up a Beethoven symphony compare to a Brahms symphony. I totally agree with this opinion. With Beethoven, you can get away with okay performances and audience will still love the performance, but you can't do the same with say, Brahms' 4th symphony. It's either a great performance or a total boredom. Therefore, it will take a lot of mess ups to turn a Beethoven symphony into total boredom. Guess what, I was bored with this performance of Beethoven's 5th.
Let's start with the first movement. The opening motif was undramatic and definitely did not set up for all the tensions to come. The whole first movement did not even provoke me to bob my head once (during all the sfzs)! And yes, we're talking about Beethoven's 5th here! The second movement was a total boredom. The rubato used in the strings and woodwinds at the end of main theme phrases disgusted me to no end. Oh yes, add to that the misfired trumpets. The third movement tempo felt more like 'Allegro non troppo' or 'Andante' rather than the marked 'Allegro'.
One thing that I can praise about the conductor is how he was being patient in the end of the Scherzo leading up to the C major outburst in the finale. That I think, was when MSO played best and finally make some big noises during the whole concert. However, this glorious moment did not last long - till the conductor messed around too much with the sudden dynamics change in key phrases. He surprised me by putting lots of emphasis in the piccolo part, but other than that I have no good things to say about his interpretation. And finally, I don't know why, but he ended the symphony with that annoying too long pause before the last chord.
A few other things that annoyed the hell out of me during the concert. Did people really come to concert hall to listen to the music or just to unwrap candy during the first movement of Beethoven's 5th? Can't people just turn off their mobile phones during the performance? Can't people just be shut up and sit comfortably without tapping their shoes, not being restless, not loudly scratch their hands or heads, not SNORE, and not finger-tapping your programs during the rhythmic section of last movement of Beethoven's 5th? I can tolerate these behaviours if it's a young kid or young adult attending concert for the first time because they can still "grow up". However, if you are 50 years old plus and still do these things, it's probably a bit too late to ask you to "grow up". Probably a good idea if you don't come to concert at all. Buy a good recording of it, and listen to it while sitting at your comfy sofa in your living room. You'll probably enjoy it much better than sitting next to strangers in Hamer Hall's not so comfy seats.
I really hope MSO's next concert is much better than this one.
- Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2
- Leif Segerstam Symphony No. 190 - UFO, under F & over World Premiere
- Beethoven Symphony No. 5
Stephen Kovacevich - Piano
Leif Segerstam - Conductor
This was one of the non-brainer concert that I picked when subscribing to MSO this season. Just look at the program: Brahms' masterpiece in piano concerto, Beethoven's 5th symphony; and finally Webern's piece Six Pieces for large orchestra. Oh well, they changed the Webern's to a strange symphony and replaced Caetani with the composer of this symphony. But, the soloist, world-renowned Stephen Kovacevich is still performing. The change in conductor shouldn't be that big of an impact to the concert, or so I thought.
My expectations were running high before the start of the concert, and yet I came out feeling bored and totally disappointed. This could be the worst MSO concert I attended this season. Very disappointing indeed when put in the context that the hall is quite full (I'd say 90% full).
Let's start with Brahms' second piano concerto. I've listened to some bits of Stephen Kovacevich's recording during the ABC concerto countdown few years back and I wasn't impressed at all. IIRC, I even turned off the radio at one stage because I couldn't stand his playing in the first movement anymore. He sounded like he was struggling with the technical demand of this piece and the natural flow of this piece was being taken away from it. Anyway, I kept my mind open during the performance, and within the first minute, I already felt a bit uneasy right after the opening cadenza of the soloist. There were a couple of wrong notes, and the playing was really insecure. It did not help also when the horn section fired some wrong notes after that. The tempo of this movement felt a little bit dragging and my favourite part of this movement -- right in the middle of this movement, when the soloist played a prayer-like melody accompanied by bass pizzicatos - was quite a let down. The rest of this movement was quite okay until we reached the end of this movement. I totally abhorred it when a conductor held the pause before the last chord too long for the sake of holding up the tension just for a bit more. The conductor did exactly that, and more after that in the later movements and in Beethoven's symphony. Instead of achieving a perfect tension-release moment, he succeeded making me utter 'ridiculous' and as a result, the home chord in the end felt underwhelming.
The soloist was better in the second movement; I actually enjoyed his agitated opening. However, the orchestra was rather tame in comparison to the soloist's aggression. "For god's sake", I thought, "come on, this music is in D MINOR. Where are all the tensions?". Fortunately, the central D major episode was much better. I loved how the soloist played the reverie-like passage here. The music now reverts back to D minor, and again, the orchestra sounded really tame. The coda of this movement is one of my favourite Brahms moment - the agitated piano and orchestra fighting each other with massive chords. The performance was okay, partly due to the piano swamped by the orchestra at that chord clashing moment.
Finally some gorgeous playing from the orchestra: David Berlin's cello solo in the third movement was glorious. Kovacevich shone for a few moments here, until he made a few mistakes during the long trills. I enjoyed the last movement the most, the dance like quality and cheerfulness was brought out wonderfully. I even commended Kovacevich for dramatically increased the tempo during the coda although the orchestra was lagging behind in the first few bars of its entry.
After the break, it was the time for Segerstam's 190th symphony. According to the note, he has composed 230 symphonies. Apparently the piece was inspired by a talk about UFO, and the interesting thing is that Segerstam did not conduct it during the performance. Instead, he played a piano in this piece which requires a super big orchestra with massive percussion section and a pair of harps and pianos. Markus Tomasi, the concertmaster of the evening, would some time stood up and gave indications to the orchestra. Other members who also stood up are the principals of piccolo and flute, although it wasn't clear why.
The piece itself was interesting in producing different sort of noises, especially the percussion section which included 2 sort of hammers: the big hammer that one would use in Mahler's 6th symphony; and the smaller hammer that you usually used in your household to fix stuff. Musically, I was bored after a few minutes, and the piece did not attract me at all. It went on for around 15-20 minutes (I did not look at the time) and through out the performance I was thinking that it's such a waste to use this massive size orchestra to play this sort of music. That pretty much sums up what I thought of this symphony.
Someone once said that Beethoven's symphonies are fool-proof. It's very hard to mess up a Beethoven symphony compare to a Brahms symphony. I totally agree with this opinion. With Beethoven, you can get away with okay performances and audience will still love the performance, but you can't do the same with say, Brahms' 4th symphony. It's either a great performance or a total boredom. Therefore, it will take a lot of mess ups to turn a Beethoven symphony into total boredom. Guess what, I was bored with this performance of Beethoven's 5th.
Let's start with the first movement. The opening motif was undramatic and definitely did not set up for all the tensions to come. The whole first movement did not even provoke me to bob my head once (during all the sfzs)! And yes, we're talking about Beethoven's 5th here! The second movement was a total boredom. The rubato used in the strings and woodwinds at the end of main theme phrases disgusted me to no end. Oh yes, add to that the misfired trumpets. The third movement tempo felt more like 'Allegro non troppo' or 'Andante' rather than the marked 'Allegro'.
One thing that I can praise about the conductor is how he was being patient in the end of the Scherzo leading up to the C major outburst in the finale. That I think, was when MSO played best and finally make some big noises during the whole concert. However, this glorious moment did not last long - till the conductor messed around too much with the sudden dynamics change in key phrases. He surprised me by putting lots of emphasis in the piccolo part, but other than that I have no good things to say about his interpretation. And finally, I don't know why, but he ended the symphony with that annoying too long pause before the last chord.
A few other things that annoyed the hell out of me during the concert. Did people really come to concert hall to listen to the music or just to unwrap candy during the first movement of Beethoven's 5th? Can't people just turn off their mobile phones during the performance? Can't people just be shut up and sit comfortably without tapping their shoes, not being restless, not loudly scratch their hands or heads, not SNORE, and not finger-tapping your programs during the rhythmic section of last movement of Beethoven's 5th? I can tolerate these behaviours if it's a young kid or young adult attending concert for the first time because they can still "grow up". However, if you are 50 years old plus and still do these things, it's probably a bit too late to ask you to "grow up". Probably a good idea if you don't come to concert at all. Buy a good recording of it, and listen to it while sitting at your comfy sofa in your living room. You'll probably enjoy it much better than sitting next to strangers in Hamer Hall's not so comfy seats.
I really hope MSO's next concert is much better than this one.
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