Appreciating and loving classical music

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 7 August 2010 - Romantic Panorama

2010-08-11T01:00:00.000+10:00

Featuring:
- Mendelssohn Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage overture
- Schumann Cello Concerto
- Schumann Introduction and allegro appassionato
- Brahms Symphony No. 3

Li-Wei Qin - Cello
Amir Farid - Piano
Johannes Fritzsch - Conductor

Sorry, a very late review this time - I have been quite busy with my life in general lately. When I got my MSO brochure last year, this program is supposed to be a tribute to Schumann - titled Schumann panorama - , conducted by Oleg Caetani. We know what happened to Caetani, and subsequently replaced a Schumann overture and 4th symphony with the least well known Mendelssohn's concert overture, and Brahms' 3rd symphony.

I haven't listened to Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage before, apart from knowing that it's quoted in Elgar's Enigma Variations. Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised to discover this little gem of Mendelssohn's. Suspension notes dominates the slower 'Calm Sea' episode with occasional rumbles from the Cellos painting a perfect picture of an unknown condition of what you can find beyond the calmness of the sea. The faster 'Prosperous Voyage' section was brilliantly orchestrated with strong timpani presence towards the end. The very end of the piece must have caught everybody by surprise, with an elegant phrase reminding us again about the whole journey. The program notes is so right, it's very poetic! Good performance by the orchestra with the conductor dancing here and there.

I have never really warmed up to Schumann's Cello Concerto. The first movement is very hard to follow, even though I've listened to this piece for around 10 times in the last year or so. I'm glad to find out that I'm not the only one with this problem - Rohan de Korte, an MSO cellist voices the same opinion as well. I enjoy the beautiful second movement - in which Li-Wei showed off his gorgeous tone. While I cannot say I thoroughly enjoyed this performance of an awkward Cello Concerto, I can definitely say that I enjoyed the encore Li-Wei gave. Playing a gypsy music with Andrew Moon (MSO's double bass), they both showed flashes of virtuosity in a light-hearted humorous music.

In contrast to his Cello Concerto, Schumann's not-so-well-known Introdution and allegro appassionato is a piece that I enjoyed a lot, esp. the recording by Richter in DG. Written for a piano solo and an orchestra, it's sort of like a mini piano concerto, lacking a slow movement. Amir Farid gave a good performance of it, but both him and the orchestra was less successful in bringing the poetic side of the piece to the surface. Still, it's good to see a fine piece being performed (for the first time by MSO apparently).

I have mentioned several times that Brahms' 3rd symphony is my least favourite symphony of his. Listening to this performance, I need someone to smack in the head to remind me why I don't enjoy this symphony as much as the other 3. It's gorgeous, beautifully crafted and orchestrated, rich of melody contents in the inner movements, and so majestic in the outer movements. I was literally overwhelmed with a performance of Brahms 3 by MSO conducted by Thomas Zehetmair in the Recital Centre last year. I didn't expect that special performance to be repeated again, and I was glad expecting less this time. While the flashes of that brilliant performance was there in this performance, it never reaches the emotional high points this time around, especially in the last movement. Still, you can't help yourself but be amazed with Brahms' skills in orchestration when listening to his symphonies.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 23 July 2010 - Requiem

2010-07-27T01:05:00.000+10:00

Featuring:
- Britten War Requiem

Elena Zelenskaya - Soprano
Timothy Robinson - Tenor
Stephan Loges - Baritone
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus - Jonathan Grieves-Smith: Chorus master
National Boys Choir of Australia - Peter Casey: Chorus master

Tadaaki Otaka - Conductor

I really want to like this concert, but in the end, through no fault of MSO and the performance, I did not really enjoy the concert. The main reason is the unlucky seat that I got. Sandwiched between two gentlemen, one who was breathing heavily through out the concert as if he was about to die soon, and the other who fell asleep most of the time, waking up only in the exciting bit and bobbing his head off-time along. I really wanted to change seats in the middle, but the breaks between the movements are just too short.

Okay, enough of the rants, off to the program now. It was a packed hall that night, and the concert started late. Also, before the concert starts, Jeffrey Crellin, the principal oboist, gave a short talk about the passing of Sir Charles Mackerras. He then returned to his seat, in the chamber orchestra bit. It probably doesn't make sense to anyone who is not familiar with the work, so here's why. The requiem is written for three 'partitions': first, the full orchestra plus the choir, and soprano soloist; second, the chamber orchestra plus the two male soloists; and third, the boys choir. The first and second partition are on stage, while the boys choir sing in the foyer.

The best bits that I enjoyed from the concert is the part written for the boys choir, the twist in the poem in the Offertorium regarding the ending of Abraham and Isaac, the highly original settings of the 'Pleni sunt coeli et terra' in the Sanctus where the choir was quickly chanting those words in different pitches and rhythm, creating this magnificent mumbling effect, the Agnus Dei, and from the duet of Tenor and Baritone in the Libera Me to the end. I really think that the duet was heavily influenced by the last movement of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde which Britten loved. How so? Both poems concern with two people, although in Mahler the concern is about two good friends departing, while in Britten, it's about two foes reuniting in the after life. The end of the piece is dissonant, just like how it should be, I think for a war related piece, to remind the listeners how terrible a war can have.

Wait, hang on, now if I look bad, I actually quite like a lot of the piece, but what ended up as a disappointment is the 'Dies Irae'. I don't know, maybe it's just not exhilarating as Mozart's or Verdi's. I'm not talking about the opening stanzas of the 'Dies Irae' sequence, I'm talking about the whole thing. I guess I'm used to certain way a composer sets certain part of the sequence. For example, Liber Scriptus and Recordare are usually given to the soloists, and Rex Tremendae is usually given to the chorus. Britten reversed a lot of them, and his settings sounded a bit rush, and a little bit less imaginative and creative compared to again, the two requiems by Mozart and Verdi. Oh yes, the biggest let down is the 'Kyrie', which is basically using the fragment of the Introit.

The orchestra played well in general, although I think the orchestration is on the sparse side, with the full orchestra usually stay put during a long chamber orchestra bit, and vice versa. As this was the first time I heard this piece, I can't really comment on the `correctness` of the playing. Both adults and boys choirs were good, no complaint in there. The soloists were alright, although yeah, now I remember it, I felt almost indifferently all the time during the male soloists prolonged settings of the poems. That's another aspect of the piece that I have to get used to enjoy it fully.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 16 July 2010 - Shine

2010-07-18T00:36:00.000+10:00

Featuring:
- Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 3
- Rachmaninov Symphony No. 2

Garrick Ohlsson - Piano
Tadaaki Otaka - Conductor

Tonight's the Second Town Hall Proms of the year. A prelude to the concert is the organ recital by Calvin Bowman, of course. He played Bach's lengthy 'Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, BWV. 542', Jehan Alain's quiet variations of a theme by Clement Jannequin in which the stage lighting to the organ changes every now and then, Galuppi's Allegro e spiritoso, and a rather quirky arrangement of Verdi's Grand March from Aida. It's really strange and fascinating at the same time to listen to organ blaring the glorious brass notes.

For the concert proper, there's no escaping Rachmaninov that night. Even all the encores are Rachmaninov's compositions. The title of this concert refers to the movie Shine which features a pianist trying to play the difficult Rachmaninov's D minor concerto. I've watched the movie, but it's not really my favourite movie. Amadeus is a much better and more memorable movie.

Main dishes for tonight was Rachmaninov's two warhorses: third Piano Concerto and 2nd Symphony. I am undecided which piano concerto of Rachmaninov's I prefer better, I love the unabashed lush super duper romantic second concerto, but yet found the third much more intelligent without being over sentimental like its predecessor. Anyway, I am no authority in 'Rach 3' compared to this guy here. I did notice though that Garrick played the shorter cadenza in the first movement, and played the uncut version of both 2nd and 3rd movements. I also noticed that I forgot the time completely when Garrick played the whole concerto, I was so focused on the performance, and totally immersed in a performance in which a technically assuring, maturely minded, and intelligent pianist at work. Garrick took the first movement just a tad slower to say Argerich's or Horowitz's (with Reiner) recordings. However, instead of taking the slower tempo as a sign of insecure techniques, I sensed that Garrick is just keeping some energy in reserve. He didn't overdo the virtuosic bit, unlike Horowitz, but yet still enough to convince me of his pianism. I have never enjoyed this concerto's second movement better than in this performance, the rhapsodic, yearning, and fantasia like Intermezzo. And the finale is just .. breathless, the orchestra supporting Garrick was just really totally hot, and producing lots of wonderful accompaniment moment, esp. in the marching like session, just before the coda and the unabashed super romantic D major episode after that. The bravura finale is a total eargasm. An unusually very quiet audience roared right after this.

What a performance. Instead of making the concert just another concert to show off his virtuoso skills, Garrick went one step further and presented a mature, musically satisfying performance without going overboard in the fireworks. Credit must also be given to the orchestra who maintained its presence throughout and the maestro for balancing both contingents impeccably. Garrick gave Rachmaninov's Prelude in C sharp minor, and again, the audience is just stunned to silence with the thundering bass chords in the climax of the piece. Brilliant.

What comes after this concerto is another great performance. I don't know what's with the orchestra tonight, they just seemed to be in the right gear all the time, and by MSO standard, I think the ensemble was just a notch above the average MSO performance. The lush 3rd movement was one of the highlight of the concert, its long and intertwining melodies were just as sonorous as I could have asked for. One moment in the finale that I treasure the most is when Maestro Otaka signaling the entry to the horn section, and suddenly all the horn sections responded and lifted their instruments, as if they were playing the climax of Mahler's 8th symphony. That's glorious. Also, halving the tempo in the section just before the coda works beautifully in terms of squeezing out every single possible emotional outbursts from really those special moments. It's simply one of the best symphony performance that I had from MSO this year, I think.

After that, and a short speech from Wilma Smith regarding the death of Sir Charles Mackerras, we were then presented with Rachmaninov's Vocalise. A heartfelt performance is the only way to describe it. I attended what is to be his last concert in Australia, and remembered commenting how frail he already is back then. Unfortunately my wish of seeing him conducting again was not granted. RIP Sir Charles Mackerras.

Maestro Otaka, really, you totally deserved all that applause for that night, and yet you're too shy to receive them! I don't know what's wrong with your eyes, you seemed to wipe them off after the concert, which only leads me to thinking two things: 1). You're touched by the performance, and maybe to the loss of Sir Charles or 2). You're already sleepy and long for bed. I strongly believe the reason of you wiping your eyes is the first thing I thought of, but your gesture of 'oh look at the time, it's time to sleep and stop applauding' might swing me a little to the second explanation :).

Next concert: Britten's War Requiem, next week.

Australian Chamber Orchestra concert 11 July 2010 - Barefoot Fiddler

2010-07-13T21:10:00.000+10:00

Featuring:
- Schuetz German Magnificat (transcribed for strings)
- Tigran Mansurian Violin Concerto "Four Serious Songs"
- Sandor Veress Four Transylvanian Dances
- Kats-Chernin Zoom and Zip
- Haydn Violin Concerto in G major
- Vivaldi Violin Concerto, RV. 253, "The Storm at Sea"

Patricia Kopatchinskaja - Guest Director and Lead Violin

To be honest, this is the concert that I am least interested in when looking at the ACO brochure last year. How glad I was to be proven wrong big time - I think I enjoyed this concert as much as the previous 'Romantic Symphony' concert, and it's simply one of the best ACO concerts I have had the pleasure to attend.

With the closure of Hamer Hall, ACO moves its concerts in Melbourne to Melbourne Town Hall. I have previously remarked my concern about the acoustic of Town Hall in regards to the smaller orchestra like ACO in my previous post, but I'm glad that my worst fear is unjustified. The ACO still produces a stellar sound, worthy of a full-sized symphony orchestra, while none of the details are lost. It's a slightly different acoustic than Hamer Hall, true to that, but the change of venue doesn't bother me as much as I was anticipating.

The concert started in a subdued tone with Schuetz's German Magnificat on offering. While the piece was originally written for two choirs, and an organ, ACO performed the strings transcription of it by replacing the two choirs with equally split strings, and the organ with the harpsichord. Schuetz's Magnificat is a smaller in scale compared to say Bach's or Vivaldi's or Monteverdi's and lacking part for solo voices. It's a bit strange for me to listen to a settings of Magnificat without the text sung, but the quality of the composition shone through. I think I would've enjoyed this piece better in a cathedral, and performed in its original settings, due to the pious feel and the restrained exuberant joy. Having said that, I still enjoyed this transcription immensely, due to the ACO's ability to bring out the sonority of different voices in this piece.

We were then transported from the pre-Bach baroque music to 2006. Mansurian's violin concerto "Four Serious Songs" drew its inspiration from the same source as Brahms' late song cycle of the same name. Painting the "transience of life", and described by the composer as "reflections on death", the violin concerto showcased Patricia's technical skills in dispatching high-register notes fearlessly and without any slight hesitations at all, her virtuosity in fast moving passages, and her musical abilities in conveying emotions the music carries in a more meditating passages. The program notes discussed the folk music influence in this piece, and the influence is showed in traces of melody and a more non-conventional harmonies throughout. In one section of the piece, I even felt like I was listening to Khachaturian's Violin Concerto! (Khachaturian is an Armenian, and his violin concerto is imbued with folk music influence too).

The highlight of the concert for me is Sandor Veress' excellent Four Transylvanian Dances, which again, has its roots from folk tunes. The first dance, Lassu, with its long, arching, and yearning melody reminded me a lot of the main melody of Rimsky-Korsakov's third movement of the Scheherazade (the Young Prince and the Young Princess). Ugros, the second dance, is just pure delight, and very fun to dance too that Pat and some members of the ACO swayed their body to the dance rhythm. The third dance, Lejtos was more serious in tone where suddenly in the end, it shifted to a brighter mood. And the last dance, Dobbantos (aka. stomping dance), must be the most memorable piece in the concert. Fast tempos, and dispatched with brilliant virtuosities from the orchestra, and the most memorable bit: Unison feet-stamping from all the musicians (three times, IIRC) that caught the audience by surprise. Marvelous performance!

Kats-Chernin's cheeky Zoom and Zip was next after the interval. Although I found it a bit repetitive at times, the audience was treated by something special in this piece: at one section, Patricia actually sang the main melody of the piece! Although her voice is not a first-rate opera star quality, its sudden appearance makes it very memorable, and her pitch, singing the not so straightforward tonality of the melody, was spot on. I'm not sure if this is an improvisation or not, but I'm more impressed by Patricia's musicianship by the second.

After a series of contemporary music, we were then offered music from the bygone era. Haydn's G major Violin concerto perhaps is not his best work, but Patricia offered a very enjoyable performance, especially the dreamy second movement of the piece, and straight after, dispatching these dreamy qualities with a brilliant finale.

The final piece of the night, Vivaldi's "The Storm at Sea" was published in the same collection as his more famous "Four Seasons". In turn, the fast tremolo passages in the Storm of the Summer movement of the Four Seasons, find its way to the "Storm of the Sea". The Largo was short, and borders on improvisational performance. In the finale, there were 2 members of the orchestra running their fingers up and down the harpsichord strings while the others keep playing. For a baroque piece, I'm surprised to find radical harmonic shifts used by Vivaldi. It's so extreme that it will not be out of place in late-Romantic era music.

After a long applause, Patricia said something to the audience which I didn't quite catch, and subsequently didn't know what's the piece that she and the orchestra played as the encore.

Whoa, this concert was awesome. First of all, it's so unconventional already that a solo violinist played barefooted in the concert, but Patricia's musicianship is something to be admired, and praised. Her constant swaying to the music, stamping, and the energy she brought in to the performance engaged the audience to another level of music enjoyment. For a more seasoned concert-goer, her technical abilities, and her confidence bow attacks reassured us that she is really one of the top violinist in the world. I'm glad I've attended this concert, and really looking forward to attending her concert again next time.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 28 June 2010 - Last Waltz

2010-06-29T20:55:00.006+10:00

Featuring:
- Liszt Mephisto Waltz No. 1 (The Dance in the Village Inn)
- Brahms Violin Concerto
- Ravel La Valse
- Haydn Symphony No. 45 'Farewell'

Daniel Hope - Violin
Mario Venzago - Conductor

This concert is special in the sense that it is the very last concert where MSO performs in Hamer Hall before the hall undergoes major renovation, scheduled to finish in 2012. The program is an interesting mix of tone poems, concerto, and a symphony befitting to such an occasion. So did the audience, actually, the hall was pretty close to being sold-out.

Liszt's music hasn't always convinced me, but this time, I quite enjoy his program music of Mephistopheles taking command of music making in a tavern. On the other hand, Brahms's violin concerto is the violin concerto I hold in the highest regard. Daniel Hope's performance was a little bit insecure in the first movement, esp. during the entry of the violin solo where it sounded a little sharp. You can kind of see him struggling to produce the required sound in the technically challenge passages in the first movement due to the sharpness of his instrument, but he played better in a more lyrical passage. The cadenza, was taken quite slowly, and by the time the orchestra re-entered at the end of the cadenza, I felt like I just woke up from a deep meditation. Daniel then re-tuned his violin in the little break in the between, and dispatched 2nd and 3rd movements easily, and more convincingly. Very enjoyable performance, but unfortunately, the emotional high point of Brahms' violin concerto is in its first movement. Ultimately, while the big moments are still there, they failed to break me down into tears.

Next up after interval is Ravel's La Valse. Ravel is a funny one for me, some of his music I love to death - the G major concerto for example. But his other orchestral musics sound like a big poo-poo pretty superficial music, e.g. Bolero, The Mother Goose, and Valses nobles et sentimentales which I heard in London and bored me. I was preparing for the worst with La Valse, but it turned out to be much better than I expected. An interesting beginning, the program describes it as 'waltz viewed from a distance', in which low strings, and winds playing fragments of waltz. It was not long until we were thrown directly into the middle of a ball, with the waltz in full force and you can probably trace some melodies of your most famous waltzes in there. The same music returned in the end, making the ending overwhelming, and very pleasing.

The final and main dish of the concert is Haydn's Farewell Symphony. Long known for its theatrical finale, I am enlightened by a very informative program on the structure of the symphony. First of all, the tonality, F-Sharp minor, is rather rare during Haydn's time. The minor tonality gave this piece a special twist in Haydn's mostly major symphonies, very much Sturm und Drang style. I remembered the minuet ending with a violin solo from the concertmaster, before the Presto section of the finale broke out. A horn note signals the adagio, in which, one by one and turn by turn, members of the orchestra left the stage (including the conductor which gave his best effort signaling to the audience not to clap yet). In the end, only the concertmaster and the second violin leader played the same melody in thirds, before the second violin leader had enough and left the concertmaster on stage by himself. There's only one stage light remaining at this stage, and by the time the concertmaster finished his last note, the stage went dark, and I felt a small ache in my heart. The applause broke out, and all the members of the orchestra playing in the symphony came back and took their well-deserved bows. A minority but noticeable portion of the audience gave a standing ovation. A heart-felt performance, and befitting to such an occasion.

A word about the conductor. He's the same person who conducted MSO in a rather strange program containing Mozart's D minor concerto, Schoenberg's variations for orchestra, and Ravel's Bolero. He's the person who opened up my mind and encouraged me not to fear Schoenberg's music and made the variations for orchestra performance such a memorable occasion that I felt completely bored with Ravel's creativeless Bolero. I attended the pre-concert talk and he was really informative on how he viewed the Ravel's La Valse and the aspects of conducting that he drew in terms of producing the sound that he prefers for different kind of repertoire. He's just delightful this man, and I'll be sure to attend his next concert should he come again next time (I think I remembered Huw Humphreys mentioning he'll be back next year).

So for now, farewell Hamer Hall. I'm sure you'll look, feel, and sound better after your renovation.

Australian Chamber Orchestra concert 7 June 2010 - Romantic Symphony

2010-06-08T01:24:00.003+10:00

Featuring:
- Jonny Greenwood Popcorn Superhet Receiver Australian Premiere
- Schubert Symphony No. 8 "Unfinished"
- Brahms Symphony No. 1

Well, due to some circumstances, I need to change my ACO concert to Monday. Offered the choice of stall or balcony seats, I decided to take on the latter seat. As much as I hate balcony seats in Hamer Hall because they tend to make me feel nauseous, it's still better to have a clear view of the orchestra, rather than stuck somewhere in stall seats where all you can see is the first two rows of musicians.

My decision paid off immediately when ACO gave the Australian Premiere of Radiohead's lead guitarist's piece with its quirky and rather cute title. Plagiarising the program notes, "A superhet (superheterodyne) receiver generates a fixed tone as a result of the frequency difference between two carrier waves - in the early days of wireless transmission, this was a frequency equivalent to a note at the very top of the violin's range. Popcorn is a low-fat, high-fibre, maize foodstuff". That last sentence made my day :). As I'm not familiar with Radiohead music and Jonny Greenwood in general, let's just jump to the music itself. Scored for a moderate-sized string orchestra (around 30, if I'm not mistaken), it's a lush string showcases lacking a recognisable main theme. In place of this, it exploits almost all strings playing techniques: bowed, pizzicato, Bartok pizzicato, even treating the violins like a guitar, you name it, I think they're all there. To grossly simplify the music, I think it's in ternary form with a slightly longer first part, and a very interesting second part. The first and last part of the music concerns with creating the soundscape of musical waves. I was trying to find a scientific term to express this soundscape more accurately when my companion for the night suprised me by uttering "Doppler effect" - brilliant!. To create this effect, Greenwood resorted to glissandos, tremolos, passing main musical ideas from a string divisi to the other, and even sometimes from one player to the other so that almost every strings plays a solo at different places in the piece. All these musical tricks are a feast to my eyes: the sights of the bows going up and down from one player to the other created an effect of a - well of course - wave. Thank goodness I chose the balcony seat :).

The second part of the music was really fun, the violins and violas were held like a guitar by the musicians, and they played a repeating rhytmic pattern with the cellos playing out the main theme here (IIRC). This is definitely rock-influenced music, well implemented in classical music and with good taste. Richard conducted the orchestra (he did not play in this piece), and the orchestra maintained the precision, clarity, and yes, sonority which in turned help the audience to grasp this music. While tightly textured, the piece is very accessible, and consists of some interesting harmonies. It actually reminds me a little bit of the Xenakis's Shaar which ACO played last year, but with less amount of dissonances.

In general, I like the piece - I just had troubles with its title. I can see the superhet connection with the wave soundscape it created, but I can't find any connection on the popcorn. Maybe the idea that radio static noises do not always necessarily a noise - not a music - and can be transformed and expressed as something pleasant, to the ear of listeners is the popcorn bit.

The woodwind, brass, and percussion guest musicians joined the enlarged strings to play Schubert's arguably most famous symphony, the 'Unfinished'. A much loved symphony, it famously contained only 2 movements. The first movement contained one of the most well-known Schubert's melody, the second theme, which was played right after the dark, gloomy opening first theme in the low strings. The cellos are gorgeous here, singing in the beautiful melody, while signalling the tragedy to come in the opening murmuring theme. In general, I like the tempo Richard took in this movement: brisk enough to keep the tension high throughout and delivered the high tension development phase with fierce staccatos, and extreme contrast in dynamics. The tension was so high here that I am thankful when the first movement is over to finally have a breather. This movement to me is a prime example of trademark Schubert, easily transforming a dark gloom moment to a beautiful moment effortlessly, and back again with the same simplicity. Another example of this is the beautiful 2nd movement of Schubert's A major sonata (#20), and the Credo from his G major Mass (#2). In the Credo, Schubert changed the pious mood in the beginning effortlessly to doom tragedy in 4 bars when the choir reaches 'Crucifixus', and transform this gloomy mood into exuberant rejoice in 8 bars in the 'Resurrexit' section. Anyway, I digressed from this concert.

I have to disagree with Murray Black's review on the second movement tempo. I found it to my liking, with plenty of time given to the woodwinds to unfold the lyrical second theme. After the high tension drama in the previous moment, it comforted me so much to listen to the woodwinds playing these lyrical melody. Not saying that the tension has gone, it's still there, lurking around, and yes, Schubert summoned them again in the contrapuntal march-like section soon after. And yet, in the end, it sounded like all is finally well. Brilliant performance from the ACO, definitely first-rate!

After the break, my favourite Brahms' symphony is on the table. Here, I agreed with Murray Black in that there are some issues with the performance in general. While the first movement worked well with brisk tempos, the second and third movements did not. Richard's solo in the second movement made it up a little bit, but the graceful woodwinds melodies are not realised to the their potential in the third movement. The coda of the finale while was brilliant and well-executed, lacked the majestic quality I yearn from this symphony, partly due to the super fast tempos. There were also some minor ensemble issues, the horns were under-pitched in a couple of spots in the finale, but overall the balance was really good. Oh yeah, love the colour the contrabassoon provided in the last movement too. Anyway, despite my usual nitpickings, ACO did one heck of a good job in giving a worthy performance of a Brahms symphony despite the fact that they have not played this symphony before. A major symphony orchestra could easily bore me playing the same symphony by lacking the punch and the energy that ACO delivered.

On a last note, this will be the final time ACO played in Hamer Hall this season as the renovation work of this hall will commence soon. To be honest, I'm a bit worried with ACO performing in the Town Hall as I don't really enjoy its acoustic that much, and its acoustic definitely favours larger ensemble. I'll be glad to be proven wrong.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 4 June 2010 - Mozart Magic

2010-06-05T01:36:00.004+10:00

Featuring:
- Mozart Cosi fan tutti: Overture
- Mozart Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466
- Mendelssohn Capriccio brilliant for Piano and Orchestra
- Haydn Symphony No. 96 'Miracle'

Howard Shelley - Piano/Conductor

First Town Hall Proms this year. And Town Hall Proms = Organ recital by Calvin Bowman. That night he played Sinfonia from Cantata No. 29 Wir danken dir, Gott which turned out to be the arrangement of the famous Preludio from the 3rd Partita for solo violin. Next on the offering was Mendelssohn's Third Organ Sonata in A major, Op. 65. I enjoyed this 2 movements piece very much, the first movement sounded like a majestic Bach chorale, and the second movement more introspective in nature, and calming. Franck's rather lengthy and less interesting piece Chorale No. 3 in A minor closed the recital.

The title of this concert is your usual cheesy marketing programming, "Mozart Magic", and would infer that the night triumph would belong to Mozart's music. Sadly, it's Haydn's music who stole the show for the night.

Mozart's overture to Cosi fan Tutti started the concert, but the MSO was just getting warmed up for the night. While the woodwinds passages are beautifully rendered, the performance in general lacked energy, and the strings sounded muffled. It's a good performance, and yet there's nothing so memorable about it. After this short piece, the members of the orchestra stood up to have the seat arrangements fixed up. A piano is needed for the next piece and this which should have been clear from the program was apparently not so clear after all for a patron sitting behind me which uttered quite loudly, "what? that's it?". Anyway, Howard Shelley came back stage and with the piano positioned so that the audience faces the performer's back, explained the reason of this awkward position and also the glass cover that replaces the piano lid on the piano. To be succinct, the glass is so that he can see the woodwinds section, and help with the clarity and the acoustics of the hall. He also talked a little bit of Mozart's composition which was composed during the same period. He also played some excerpt of Mozart's 19th, 21st, 23rd, and 24th piano concertos.

After all that, he finally started the concerto. MSO was better here, but still lacking punch (for my taste). I always associate the d minor key signature to pieces with high tension. On top of my head, I can name Mozart's Requiem, Mozart's Don Giovanni, Brahms' 1st piano concerto, 2nd movement of Brahms' 2nd piano concerto, Beethoven's 9th Symphony, Mahler's 3rd Symphony, Sibelius' violin concerto, Haydn's Nelson Mass, Bach's Chaconne for solo violin, Schumann's 4th symphony, Rachmaninoff's 3rd piano concerto, Dvorak's 4th and 7th symphonies. All of them are masterpieces which are famous for their high tension. My disappointment is that MSO did not play these high tension passages as tense as they could be played, the string attacks are not furious enough, I might say that they played the music just a bit fierce compared to how they would play a major key classical symphony, where I would have liked VERY FIERCE. Anyway, that's only my problem. The piano playing was fine, I enjoyed the beautiful 2nd movement a lot, although the contrasting episode was rather tame. Howard played Beethoven's cadenza for the 1st movement, as he did for the last movement. I like Howard's phrasings in general, and he did take some liberty in changing some notes in the 2nd movement to my fascination. The piano's clarity was much better this time, maybe because of the fact that it's a brand new concert grand piano just shipped from Hamburg (as told by Howard)?

Mendelssohn's piece was okay, but I couldn't say I enjoyed the performance very much. I enjoyed the arpeggios that started the piece, but from there it all went downhill. There were some passages in the piece that reminded me of one of Mendelssohn's own piano concertos, but I couldn't remember which one.

Finally, some remarkable playing from the orchestra. Howard brought some wits and energy to Haydn symphony which he didn't for the other programs that night. The highlights were a graceful minuet in the 3rd movement with the long oboe solo. The finale was played as marked, 'Vivace assai', the best moment of the night for me, really. And as always, a wise lesson for newcomers to Town Hall Proms: there's always encore after. You can kinda see it when David Thomas (principal clarinet) running back to the stage. I wondered what would happen if the audience didn't really like the performance and the planned encore would not go ahead simply because the applause is not long enough :). Anyway, Howard teased the audience if they would like some romantic music to end the night, and offered Sibelius' Valse Triste, but unfortunately, despite beautiful playing, no one seemed to take Howard's suggestion to waltz to this music in the concert hall.

Next concert: ACO playing 2 of my favourite symphonies: Schubert's Unfinished symphony, and Brahms' majestic 1st symphony.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 29 May 2010 - Beethoven - The Journey Begins

2010-05-30T00:31:00.006+10:00

Featuring:
- Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 2
- Olli Mustonen The Old Church at Petäjävesi
- Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4

Olli Mustonen - Piano/Director

I was really looking forward to this concert only to be let down big time. The two Beethoven's piano concertos came up really short, and included some awkward phrasings and quirks that I don't really enjoy at all. Olli Mustonen is a fine pianist, but his readings of Beethoven's concertos left me cold. With the 2nd piano concerto, I missed the clarity of the notes. Also, throughout the whole concert, Olli seemed to play a lot of final resolving notes of a phrase so softly that I almost cannot listen to them. This is really annoying me and sometimes I just have to make up the sound of that resolving notes to complete the playing of a beautiful phrase in my mind. Directing and playing a piano concerto will always be a challenge, and it's really frustrating when the ensemble wasn't perfect, e.g. a couple of mistimed entries, and the balance of the orchestra was really off. On top of that, Olli busted out quite a number of wrong notes in the 4th piano concerto. His cadenzas are weird, sort of jazzy and sound 'pop'ish. The last movement of the 4th concert was interpreted like a horse galloping to finish line. Fast tempo and nothing else. I can't honestly say I felt any of the soul from the performance of this favourite Beethoven's concerto of mine. The audience clearly didn't share my opinion and cheered loudly for the performance. Well, I guess it's hard to stay put after you listened to the finale's brilliant coda.

This frustrating performance got even more frustrating for me when in the beginning of the 4th PC during the magical chords of the opening, which for me is a big factor of the enjoyment of this concerto, an audience member sitting right behind me said 'oh, I love this' right when she recognised that magical chords. Thanks very much for speaking out my mind lady, but I prefer if you keep it to yourself next time. Also, in the 2nd movement of the same concerto, someone tried to unwrap candy in the prayer-like section till the end of that movement. Thanks for ruining the performance further. What a joke. I swear I'm not going to let anyone sitting beside me to do this thing in a concert although there's a good chance he/she won't like me very much after that.

It might be a very frustrating concert, but there's some good moments here. Olli Mustonen's symphonic-suite music is actually quite enjoyable. The music, depicting an old church in a Finnish city, is in 5 movements. The first depicting the activity of builders of the church with changing and time signature and ends suddenly. Sacred Touch, the next movement, highlights the beautiful woodwinds writing for it. The Demons, and St. Christopher (3rd and 4th movements) are my favourites with the highlight definitely goes to the slightly out-of-tune hymn-singing portrayal. The finale ends as sudden as the opening. When I think about the piece again at the end, I think it definitely has a lot of the ideas from Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.

The best moment of the concert is the encore Mustonen gave after curtain calls for his Beethoven's 4th performance. Here, he found the touch, the clarity, the sensitivity, and the sonority to express chorale-like melodies found in the piece. Sadly, I would never know what it is.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 15 May 2010 - Trumpet Superstar

2010-05-15T17:38:00.004+10:00

Featuring:
- Grieg Norwegian Dances
- Haydn Trumpet Concerto
- Richard Strauss Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life)

Giuliano Sommerhalder - Trumpet
Andrew Litton - Conductor

A MSO concert after a long 2 months break, and it's a good one. I enjoyed discovering these 3 pieces that I'm not familiar at all in this concert.

As usual, I'll go on chronologically - Grieg's Norwegian Dances is a set of 4 simple ternary form Norwegian dances inspired by, duh, what else but Norwegian folk music. All 4 pieces placed woodwinds in the spotlight, especially the oboe which deservedly was asked to stand to receive his wonderful contribution throughout. I personally enjoy the first and the third dances the most. The first dance reminiscing of the pomp march of the trolls in the composer's famous In the Hall of the Mountain King, here the rhythms pushed by the gutsy cellos. The third dance started with a beautiful melody in the major key and for the contrasting section, Grieg put the same melody in the minor key, and back again to major key. Simple, but works very well. These pieces cement his position as the master of miniature pieces for me.

Next up is Haydn's famous Trumpet concerto. I'm ashamed to not having the pleasure to listen to this beautiful concerto before. It's a classic Haydn piece, playful melodies with tasteful wits, and what gorgeous Andante - the program is not mistaken pointing out its similarity to the famous melody in Haydn's Kaiser Quartet, of which the melody of current Germany's national anthem is based on. I just love the first note that the solo trumpet played, one single simple plain note. Not more. It's so Haydn. No one would have the same wit starting a solo trumpet with just that.

Being a complete stranger to the varieties of trumpet, I am unable to comment on the sort of trumpet Giuliano used. It produced a lean, clean, crisp sound instead of big sound normally found in jazz band. It's also a bit tame compared to the trumpets that I used to hear in concert hall. Giuliano's phrasings are delicate, and they're supported by the clarity of the notes produced by the instrument. His cadenza is simply delicious. I love the moment in the finale where the main theme came back again in the end, slightly altered, to round off the work. It's so nostalgic, and I always succumb to the beauty of such composer's trick. After several curtain calls, Giuliano came back, and I believe, having changed his trumpet, gave an encore which I sadly could not identify.

I have slight reservation in terms of the orchestral accompaniment. I preferred a stronger attack on the strings, and more woodwinds presence. Otherwise, it's all fine.

The afternoon's concert highlight is Richard Strauss's Ein Heldenleben. Often being derided as semi-autobiography writing of Strauss's own life, it depicted, to put it simply, a hero's triumphant life. I don't generally regard Strauss's music at the highest level, but in this piece, I have taken several likings to his mastery: the main theme of the hero's, the depiction of the critics with the fluttering winds, and the whimsical solo violin depicting of the Hero's wife. The special effects are overwhelming, the percussions and brasses totally overpowered the woodwinds section in climax passages, apart from the piercing piccolos. The hero's final retreat is touching, and provided a quiet moment to what is otherwise an orchestra showpiece.

Andrew Litton conducted with vigor in climaxes, and sensitivity in developing long sensuous melodies, giving them a chance to breath and develop fully without rushing. Wearing a black tie with colourful circles on it, Andrew's a pleasure to watch on the podium. It's a shame that I am not interested in next MSO's concert 'Russian Showcase', that I can't see him conduct again in Melbourne.

MSO, incorporating many guest musicians for Strauss's epic work, played wonderfully today. The brass section is solid today, too solid perhaps that some of woodwinds players require a special noise blocking device placed behind their heads - separating them from the brass section.

Good music doesn't necessarily translate to good audience though. I can probably count the number of people in balcony using my fingers and toes. The circles and stalls are around 80% full.

My next concert is a set of 2 Beethoven's piano concertos, the 2nd and the 4th. I'm so looking forward to the 4th, my favourite out of the 5. I believe I have attended 2 concerts featuring the 4th twice last year, one with ACO and another with MSO. I could never get tired of this wonderful piece. The 2nd PC is different matter though, it's my least favourite Beethoven's piano concerto. I should give it another listen again before the concert.

Australian Chamber Orchestra concert 11 April 2010 - Bach and Beyond

2010-04-11T23:39:00.003+10:00

Featuring:
- Shostakovich Polka and Elegy
- Bach Missa Brevis in G minor, BWV 235
- Arvo Part Summa
- Schoenberg Litany from String Quartet No. 2
- Bach Motet: Lobet den Herrn BWV 230
- Diana Burrell Das Meer, das so gross und weit ist, da wimmelet's ohne Zahl, grosse und kleine Tiere
- Bach Cantata: Wo gehest du hin? BWV 166

Sara Macliver - Soprano
Fiona Campbell - Mezzo Soprano
Andrew Staples - Tenor
Matthew Brook - Bass
Richard Tognetti - Artistic Director and Lead Violin

I always believe that listening too much of something similar by the same composer will do you harm. That's why in my daily intake of classical music, I always mix up music from different composers or eras (or at least different styles) to keep me healthy. In this performance, ACO served us Bach and more(!). This is one of the concert where my opinion on each interval couldn't be more opposite. I enjoyed the first half of this concert immensely, while I couldn't wait until the concert finishes on the second half.

Let's start with the good things first: before the music starts, Richard Tognetti informed us that instead of following the music order as printed in the program, he's gonna play the music in this order: Shostakovich's Polka, and then the Elegy, leading to the Kyrie from Bach's Missa Brevis, and then Part's answer to Bach Summa, part of the Gloria of Bach's Missa Brevis up until the text 'qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis', and Schoenberg's Litany from his second string quartet as the reply to this text, and finally concluding with the other part of the Gloria. Richard mentioned that the purpose of these interjections are to show the composers response to Bach, in their own ways. Therefore, it's sort of like a conversation between these composers.

Strange as it seems, this is the highlight of the concert. The whole thing just worked out perfectly. The concert started with Shostakovich's satirical but tuneful Polka. Towards the end of the piece, the four soloists tiptoeing themselves into the stage accompanied by the pizzicato of the Polka. Shostakovich's Elegy was next, the playing was resonant as befitted to this beautiful piece with yearning melodies.

This quite ending leads to the opening of Bach's mass - the Kyrie, which reminds me a little bit of the opening of St. John's passion with the dissonance in the oboe over the flowing strings accompaniment. The voice writings are essentially Bach, fugal, imitative entries, and full of ornamentation. All four soloists were good. Arvo Part's Summa was very natural after the Kyrie as it was written in the same key. Another serene piece with subtle rhythmic shift and themes passed around different instruments. Good thing about this piece is that it doesn't last too long, or I'll probably change my opinion about it as a piece that exploited minimalism too far.

The Gloria were almost done after the bass and alto arias when suddenly Schoenberg's Litany from his Second String Quartet interrupted. The piece is written in E flat minor, a rather rare key, and it never feels settled. The climax of this piece is at the texts 'Nimm mir die liebe, gib mir dein gluck!' (Take from me my love, and give me your happiness!). I enjoyed this piece and the text of the poem immensely. After this, the tenor aria continues the Gloria and it finally concludes with a chorus.

This first half of the concert was so original and I must give full credit to such creative programming. These pieces are written in different era, in different style, yet none of them seems so out of place for the entire period of this half of the concert.

The problem was the second half. After the first half, I still can enjoy the next Bach's motet with a rather cool Alleluia. Burrell's dense Das Meer disappointed me. I vividly recalled that there were three people conducting in this piece: Richard, Christopher (principal viola) and Maxime (principal double bass). The piece was about the sea, but it seems the piece lack direction and I was bored after a little while. For me, Bach's cantata 'Wo gehest du hin?' (Where are you going?) is the perfect description of Burrell's music. And by the time the ACO performed the cantata, I have lost all my concentration, and with Bach's vocal music on offering again, I decided I had too much of fugues, recitatives, and vocal ornaments for the day. So this concert ended with a sour note for me.

Australian Chamber Orchestra concert 14 March 2010 - ACO Soloists

2010-03-14T21:20:00.004+11:00

Featuring:
- Franz Schreker Scherzo
- Vaughan Williams Oboe Concerto
- CPE Bach Cello Concerto in A minor
- Franz Schreker Intermezzo
- Matthew Hindson Crime and Punishment
- Britten Lachrymae
- JS Bach Concerto for Violin and Oboe BWV 1060

Helena Rathbone - Guest Director and Lead Violin
Christopher Moore - Viola
Timo-Veikko Valve - Cello
Maxime Bibeau - Double Bass
Diana Doherty - Oboe

A virtuosos concert - a very unique programming by ACO utilising all its strings principals. But hang on, where's Richard Tognetti?

Anyway, the program notes gave an early warning to the audience by signalling Schreker is a champion of Schoenberg and Hindemith on top of being friends with Berg and Webern. So, 12-tonal or atonal music to start the program? It turns out Schreker's music is very accessible - and it's full of glorious arching romantic melodies. In simple terms, I would describe his music as late-romantic style with modern twist - almost like Schoenberg's Transfigured Night. I enjoy the tight interwoven melodies and counter melodies of both his Scherzo and Intermezzo.

Diana Doherty stole this concert for me, her solo in Vaughan Williams' Oboe Concerto was delicious. Playing freely and providing plenty of body gestures expressing the sound from the oboe, Diana lifted my emotion to the very top at the end of first movement of the concerto. The beautiful dialogue the oboe had with the orchestra was well-executed. The second movement painted a picture of pastoral English village while Diana showed off her virtuosic skills in the demanding last bars of the concerto after a more quiet contrasting episode. Brilliant stuff.

While Vaughan Williams' music convinced me with its lyrical lines, CPE Bach's bored me. The rhythmic drive in outer movements of his A minor cello concerto got tired after a little while and I'm not really convinced with the Andante. Timo's virtuosic skills provided some entertainment in the outer movements, but this concerto is definitely not the best of this genre. I was also disappointed with the lack of harpsichord sound - a must have for me to fully enjoy Baroque compositions.

Matthew Hindson wrote a very challenging double bass solo in his Crime and Punishment. Showing off his talent, Maxime Bibeau impressed the audience by a large array of mad skills - fast pizzicatos (with syncopated rhythms!), tapping the finger boards, and playing beautiful melodies with his double bass. The piece itself while interesting, suffered from thematic development. It has several beautiful cadences which could be developed much further, rather than repeated 3-4 times and then discarded.

The major disappointment of the concert for me is Britten's Lachrymae. I might know the reason..I was bored waiting for big virtuoso fireworks from this performance which never came - as it was written as a 'Reflections on a song of Dowland'. I guess I was eaten by the marketing scheme, huh? Put it simply, I was not in the right mind set anticipating this piece. Stupid me, realising it only now, while I should've changed my mindset in the middle of performance.

Last piece of the concert is Bach's C minor concerto for oboe and violin - a crowd pleaser. Familiar melodies with beautiful Adagio instantly won the audience's heart. Not mine, though - I'm still disappointed with the lack of harpsichord sound. Helena and Diana played wonderfully.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 6 March 2010 - Ashkenazy Conducts Rachmaninov

2010-03-09T01:23:00.003+11:00

Featuring:
- Faure Pavane
- Debussy La Mer
- Rachmaninov The Bells

Jacqueline Porter - Soprano
Steve Davislim - Tenor
Jose Carbo - Baritone
Melbourne Symphony Chorus - chorusmaster: Jonathan Grieves-Smith
Vladimir Ashkenazy - Conductor

A very short review this time. I'm still trying to sort the mess that I've found in my home after coming back from the Saturday's concert.

Faure's Pavane - heart melting, beautiful, well-played, yada yada. The weird thing about the whole performance was: the chorus. The chorus was supposedly singing a double duet poem about the quarrel of two imaginary pairs of lovers. I don't understand French or familiar enough with the poem to be affected by the text. Although Faure originally wrote the piece in this form, I still prefer very much listening to it without the text and imagine stuffs on my own.

La Mer - Ahhhhhhhhh La Mer again. I won't complain - I love La Mer. Very good performance, especially the rousing climax in the finale. I forgot other good impressions I have with the concert, sorry :(

As good as La Mer performance went, I think I was satisfied the most with the performance of Rachmaninov's The Bells. I have never liked this piece apart from the playful 1st movement, although Rachmaninov claimed that it is his favourite composition. Ashkenazy changed my opinion of the piece by revealing the beautiful, long lyrical Soprano lines in the second movement; the excitement of brass in the frightful third movement and finally, the last movement - ala Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde. The rising melody right after the very last words of the solo bass was the emotional highpoint for me in the whole concert. That moment felt like an alto singing the "Ewig, ewig" at the end of Das Lied von der Erde. The 3 soloists sung beautifully.

Average attendance. The balcony is almost empty, but compensated with 85% stall capacity and almost full circle.

Next concert: ACO's concert next week.

Various concerts in European Halls and Theatres

2010-03-09T01:22:00.001+11:00

Coming soon!

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 4 December 2009 - The Slender Thread

2009-12-07T01:58:00.007+11:00

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).

Anton Bruckner's Motets

2009-12-02T00:54:00.004+11:00

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.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 30 November 2009 - Revolutions

2009-12-01T00:55:00.008+11:00

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.

Australian Chamber Orchestra concert 16 November 2009 - Beethoven 4

2009-11-18T16:13:00.003+11:00

Featuring:
- Brett Dean Testament
- Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4
- Beethoven Symphony No. 4

Dejan Lazic - Piano
Richard Tognetti - Artistic Director and Lead Violin

This was a Beethoven-flavoured concert, with 2 major Beethoven pieces and a piece by Brett Dean who was inspired by Beethoven's Heiligenstadt Testament. The piece - Testament - started off with unison strings playing what was described as 'sound losing grip' in the program. This was emphasised by similar idea in the woodwinds. The piece was really slow in the beginning and I lost interest as the music progressed. It doesn't help that I'm not familiar with any Beethoven's String Quartet, and therefore couldn't notice where Brett Dean quoted the slow movement of Op. 59 No. 1 in this piece. I can't honestly say I was impressed with the music. However, the problem might not be with the music; I was a bit tired that day and my concentration was wobbly that day. The finale was much better, although again, the piece in general didn't have any strong impression on me.

Dejan Lazic gave a very refreshing performance of Beethoven's 4th piano concerto. Although the opening did not convince me, due to Dejan did not play the full note value of the opening chords, he compensated it with a few interesting things. The most notable aspect is he played his own cadenza (which I confirmed when I talked to him after the concert). The cadenza is a unique blend of Chopin, Rachmaninov, Scarlatti, and possibly a bit of Beethoven himself (Dejan told me that Busoni is one of the composer in the mix). The other notable aspect is the use of rubato, and the playing of a high degree of freedom in the tempo. He would slow down the tempo in a beautiful cadence, only to do an accelerando in the following phrases. His phrasings are delicate, while the ever present bass line provides the overall balance. The ACO accompanied Dejan's freedom of tempo dutifully, and overall provided a wonderful accompaniment throughout. ACO really shone in the second movement - a small chamber orchestra producing big sfz and accented notes effortlessly. While Dejan's playing in this movement is fine, it did not manage to move me as much as other recordings that I know of. The third movement rises out from the depths of hell in second movement into the exuberance of joy. I loved the balance of the counter melodies of violas and cellos against the violins in the opening of this finale. Again, Dejan played his own cadenza in this movement in the style as far removed as from Beethoven's own cadenza. The coda was exciting and played prestissimo to a thunderous applause. After several curtain calls, Dejan gave an encore - a rather fast Chopin's Minute Waltz. Not my favourite rendition, but I won't complain when a soloist gave an encore in the concert.

One more note about Dejan. I noticed he's very much down-earthed guy when signing autographs for the audiences. Every time an audience came up and praised him for a wonderful performance, he would bow down deeply to express his gratitude. Also, he stood up all the time during his interactions with the audience although he could have easily sat down.

The final piece of the concert is Beethoven's much neglected 4th symphony. This, along with the 8th symphony, are my favourite Beethoven symphonies. I'm not saying that they are the greatest piece of music that Beethoven wrote, but I just feel extremely happy when listening to both of them. I commend ACO to have the balls to program this underrated symphony. At first, I was a bit skeptical on how ACO can successfully play this piece with only small number of double basses (only 2). Could they possibly sustain this piece? Turns out that they can, and coupled that with beautiful playings of every sections of the orchestra (esp. the woodwinds!), you'll get a knock out performance. Richard's choice of tempo is on the fast side (as usual for his Beethoven), and it works out really well with the energy that ACO put for this performance. I still can't get over the way Richard conducted with his bow though. The audience seemed to love the performance, and it's a good advertisement for this much neglected symphony. Thumbs up for programming this ACO!

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 13 November 2009 - Coloratura Showcase

2009-11-14T17:46:00.003+11:00

Featuring:
- Bellini The Capulets and the Montagues: Sinfonia
- Bellini The Capulets and the Montagues: Eccomi in lieta vesta..O quante volte
- Respighi Fountains of Rome
- Puccini Gianni Schicchi: O mio babbino caro
- Rossini The Barber of Seville: Overture
- Donizetti Lucia di Lammermoor: Regnava nel silenzio..Quando rapito in estasi
- Berlioz Romeo and Juliet: Romeo alone - Festivities at the Capulets'
- Gounod Romeo and Juliet: Je veux vivre
- Debussy Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun
- Ambroise Thomas Hamlet: Ophelia's Mad Scene

Emma Matthews - Soprano
Alexander Shelley - Conductor

The star of this 'Celebrity concert' is supposed to be Sumi Jo. However, due to last minute injury, she cancelled her appearance in this concert to my disappointment. There are 10 programs on offer, with an orchestral piece alternating with a soprano aria sung by the replacement soloist, Emma Matthews. Emma is currently the principal artist of Opera Australia and should be a fair substitute to Sumi Jo. On top of that, Alexander Shelley who did a wonderful job conducting Rimsky Korsakov's Scheherazade MSO during last year's Sidney Myer free concert is the conductor of the night. Needless to say, my expectation of this concert is high.

Unfortunately though, my expectation was not met. The orchestra sounded a little bit uninspired in some of the opera numbers (maybe partly of the music itself?), but did a fair job in Rossini's Barber of Seville overture. I enjoyed Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun despite some unclean entries from some members of the orchestra. Also, the climax in the piece was a bit underwhelming.

Emma Matthews is a soprano who behaved like one on stage. She even changed her dress during the interval, and did plenty of what I called over-the-top gestures (esp. when she acted very girlishly in Gounod's aria). I guess, she's a prima donna after all and most of them act like one. Or maybe, she needs to act like that to be in the right mood for the character she's singing (she certainly acts like a deranged person in Ophelia's mad scene). Anyway, seeing someone's gestures or attitudes on stage is not the reason why I attended classical music concert - I can go to opera instead - , and I'm fine with all of that as long as the artist has the talent to match it. In Emma case, she definitely has a wonderful voice, a great range and control on the higher pitch, although her voice was occasionally swamped by the orchestra's fortissimo. Her notes ornamentation in particular (which is really the most important thing in the bel canto repertoire) impressed me. She's especially impressive at Donizetti's and Thomas' arias and the audience loved that high (C?) notes that she produced in the climaxes. Her other arias were fine, but not particularly impressive.

I guess the main reason why I did not enjoy this concert very much is the program. Bel canto music is not my cup of tea (at least not yet), and there were just too much of them that night. I'm looking forward to entirely different programs in ACO's Beethoven 4 concert.

Australian Chamber Orchestra concert 25 October 2009 - The Girl with Golden Flute

2009-10-25T20:47:00.003+11:00

Featuring:
- Handel Concerto Gross, Op. 6 No. 7
- Peteris Vasks Vox amoris: Fantasy for violin and strings - World Premiere
- Carl Vine Pipe Dreams
- Jose Serebrier Flute Concerto - World Premiere
- Tchaikovsky Serenade for Strings

Sharon Bezaly - Flute
Richard Tognetti - Artistic Director and Lead Violin

Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings was the reason I looked forward to this concert. This little gem has a particular charm of it that I can't resist. ACO's trademark sound worked well and it's always nice to hear the counterpoints and accompanying melodies clearly in this melodic driven piece. The players seemed to enjoy themselves while playing this, I caught a few smiles here and there during a delightful passage.

Another high point of the concert is Peteris Vasks' Vox Amoris. Richard Tognetti's solo violin was at the highest intensity and soared above the orchestra. The performance was even more heartfelt with a beautiful writing by Vasks. While the technical demand was enormous for the solo violin in both cadenzas, Vasks avoid turning this piece to a virtuoso showpiece by carefully injecting a gorgeous cantabile melody in the end. The composer who was present, took a couple of deserved bows from an enthusiastic audience.

The rest of the programs were a bit of a let down in one way or another. While Handel's Concerto Grosso contain some fine passages, the piece itself is not that eventful. The biggest let down for me was the performance of the two flute pieces by Sharon Bezaly. Both pieces failed to catch my attention and left me cold. I wasn't sure why, maybe I paid too much attention to the flautist herself. I do not have any idea on how to play a flute, and failed to see her virtuosity in both pieces. Sure, there are long passages with plenty of running semiquavers, and they're executed brilliantly, but I have some reservations with the tone of the flute. I was expecting a clear, sharp articulation but most of the time I was troubled by a muffled tone from the soloist. It also doesn't help when the orchestra overwhelms it. I was impressed however, at one point, Bezaly could hold a particular note for a seemingly long time (due to circular breathing, I presume). And for what it's worth, I was more impressed with Bezaly's performance during the slower section where I can appreciate the 'warmth' tone of her flute. Due to all of the factors above, I couldn't say that I enjoyed this concert very much.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 23 October 2009 - Serenity and Spectacle

2009-10-25T19:45:00.003+11:00

Featuring:
- Faure Requiem
- Saint-Saens Symphony No. 3 'Organ'

Antoinette Halloran Soprano
Samuel Dundas Baritone
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus - Jonathan Grieves-Smith Chorus Master
Richard Gill Conductor

Fresh from his massive all Bach works organ recital for Melbourne International Arts Festival, Calvin Bowman presented an all Bach program which I won't go to details. There are 4 pieces, BWV 680, 639, 645 (the transcription of 'Sleepers, Wake') and finally 768 which is a very long "theme and variations".

I am fond of Faure's Requiem. The serenity and peaceful nature of this piece will always be its advantages. I have probably discussed this, but I really like the 'Sanctus'; a very simple movement with simple melody with harp accompaniment; a perfect picture of what we think of as 'Heaven'. MSO and MSO chorus, under Richard Gill gave straightforward reading of it. The choir sang beautifully although I would prefer the sopranos to sing more angelic-like in the Sanctus and In Paradisum. The performance could've been more effective with better soloists though; Antoinette Halloran has a fine voice but her vibrato is probably a bit too much for the angelic 'Pie Jesu'; Samuel Dundas has a darker timbre voice than what I would've liked. I prefer a baritone with 'lighter' timbre to deliver the solo in the Offertoire and Libera Me. All of this just comes down to your personal preference.

I noticed the following things when I was following the score while listening to Faure's Requiem before the concert and confirming it in the concert: the violins are not frequently used. Viola players would absolutely love this piece as they have all the spotlights and become the main driving force of the melody most of the time (with Cello).

After the break, it's time for Saint-Saens' Organ symphony. Richard Gill's tempo was on the slow side in the first movement, and therefore I felt that the orchestra did not really jump on the momentum to push the piece forward. The second movement was different; and it was heartfelt performance. Actually, come to think about it, I always prefer the 2nd movement compared to the last big movement which starts with a big chord from the organ. Richard Gill finally pushed the tempo towards the end of the piece. Combined that with well-executed fast runs from the orchestra, a timpani being thumped out, fanfare from the brass, and a massive C chord from the organ, you'll definitely will have the audience on loud cheers.

The encore of the night is Ravel's Pavane for Dead Princess. I rue another Pavane for encore. Why can't they play like one of Saint-Saens rarely heard tone poem as the encore? Sigh.

London Philharmonic Orchestra concert 11 October 2009 - Program Two

2009-10-11T23:15:00.003+11:00

Featuring:
- Wagner Prelude to Act 1 of Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg
- Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto
- Beethoven Symphony No. 3 'Eroica'

Vadim Repin - Violin
Vladimir Jurowski - Conductor

So, how did this concert go after a mind-blowing concert the day before? To be honest, I thought the Saturday's concert was better than the Sunday's.

The concert hall was full for this performance, probably due to the strong words from yesterday's concert goers. And for the first time since I started attending concerts, all audience are required to stand up to 'God Save the Queen' and 'Advance Australia Fair' played by the orchestra. Wagner's Prelude to act 1 of Die Meistersinger opened up the concert. As the programs suggested, there are plenty of counter melodies and counter points throughout the piece, especially in the cello. The finale where all melodies and a choral-like melody combined together proved to be the highlight of the concert for me.

Tchaikovsky's violin concerto is a warhorse that will always please the audience. Vadim Repin delivered a solid playing of it, and there's no point discussing his techniques. His recording of this concerto with Gergiev is my favourite recording of this piece, and he delivered similar reading of it in the concert. I was disappointed when he did the pizzicato in the solo violin passage after the burst in the beginning of the last movement. He plucked all the strings at once, yes, that was indicated at score, but I was hoping he would pluck them one by one, just like he did in his recording. Anyway, the finale was hot, although I enjoyed the second movement the best. The intimate woodwind melodies came out nicely, and I should commend LPO woodwinds for this. For the maestro, he brought out some little details that again went unnoticed by me, stressing some passages which feel unimportant, but were actually very effective. His trademark big gestures are still there. I mentioned something about his left hand on my previous post, so let me comment on his right hand. He hold his baton in his right hand, and prefer to 'jab' the baton to indicate entries in the orchestra. Also he occasionally joined both of his hands, gripping tight to the baton when he wanted the orchestra to play a big forte chord.

The opening movement of the Eroica was taken at a brisk pace, although not as fast as Gardiner's recording. The big chords weren't as loud and dramatic as I would have expected, but I'm pretty sure Jurowski was trying to hold the orchestra until the big climaxes in the second and fourth movements. This proved to be true, the second movement is one of the most morbid funeral march that I've ever listened to and with amazing development section in the passages before the famous fugue in the middle. The clarity from the strings (I can listen to the violas without actually paying special attention to them!) helped enhancing the effect in the fugue. Big moment in the opening of the last movement was a bit unclean, but the variations were brought out nicely. Overall, the performance was of high quality, but not as thought-provoking as last night's Tchaikovsky's 4th. Huge applause followed, but with less standing ovations this time. The encore is...a piece that I'm not familiar with. I know the cellos started it, and the horns were prominent. After the concert, I was too shy to approach any of the orchestral players to ask them what the piece was, until I finally brace myself to talk to, surprise surprise, the leader of the second violin (I believe his name is Fredrik Paulsson), who I was so excited about. I thanked him for a great concert, and commented on his passionate playing. He also mentioned that the orchestra is going back to London tonight. And yes, he informed me that the encore piece was the Prelude to the third act of Die Meistersinger.

A person that I would have loved to meet is the principal cello. She is this gorgeous blonde woman who played with the upmost passion. Unfortunately, I didn't see her after the concert.

Summing up, I really enjoyed both concerts (esp. the Saturday's) and Vladimir Jurowski successfully brought out little details that are as important as the obvious themes in the music. This alone, have enhanced my experience by multiple levels. The enjoyment of hearing counter melodies and counterpoints from the orchestra and when played with such presence and clarity that you can't help but noticing them is a no easy feat and I should commend Jurowski for producing this effect. Orchestra discipline is another important point, when the orchestra moved and played as one, it will make a big impact to the audience (although I need to mention that the orchestra is less discipline on Sunday, as I can detect some hurried and unclean entries). Another point that I need to mention is the quality of the woodwinds section. Often the sound coming out from the winds are blended, and often it's hard to distinguish one from the other when playing unison. In both performances, I could effortlessly do this because of such different colours produced by each player. I don't need to make comments on the brass section: they're just mad. In the fiendishly difficult brass writing in Tchaikovsky's 4th, they produced those crazy fanfares to perfection. Credit also to the percussion section for their awesome performance in Koehne's piece.

Finally, I'll take the bullet asking this question: which orchestra is better? MSO or LPO? Right now, for me, the answer is easy: LPO. However, comparing an orchestra is not that easy: it might be the conductor who made the difference in the level of orchestra playing. I would certainly be able to make better judgement if Jurowski conducts the MSO in, let's say the Tchaikovsky's 4th symphony again.

London Philharmonic Orchestra concert 10 October 2009 - Program One

2009-10-11T00:00:00.007+11:00

Featuring:
- Graeme Koehne Powerhouse - Rhumba for orchestra
- Ravel Piano Concerto in G major
- Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4

Jean-Yves Thibaudet - Piano
Vladimir Jurowski - Conductor

Holy crap. I was so looking forward to this concert and the concert met my every expectation. Let me just declare this: I have never heard an orchestra whose members are on the edge of their seats on every second of the concert. To plagiarise someone else's word on LPO: 'This is an orchestra on fire'. I bought the program; it costs 20 bucks - a bit expensive, but I'm quite happy with the quality of it. Another way to think about this is: I got a circle seat for both concerts for $25 each. That's pretty much unbeatable price. Paying extra $20 for the program won't hurt me at all after that.

So, let's start with the concert: Graeme Koehne's Powerhouse, subtitled Rhumba for orchestra, is a piece for large orchestra and clearly obsessed with the Rumba dance. A good piece, although with some popular tunes in it. Although inspired by some popular musics, the pieces itself contained considerable amount of good ideas. Vladimir Jurowski gave a very exciting reading LPO executed music passages effortlessly. One musician that caught my eye immediately was the leader of the second violin who was really into the music. The orchestra never seem to run out of energy and stamina, and always delivered the extra punch during climaxes to heighten the effect.

A very stylish Jean-Yves Thibaudet came out as the soloist for Ravel's masterpiece - Piano Concerto in G major. The orchestra size is much smaller compared to the massive force required in the Koehne's piece. The playfulness of the first movement was brought out successfully and Jurowski impressed me again by bringing out little details that I never noticed before. Jean-Yves executed the piano glissandos in the beginning wonderfully. He also listened attentively to the orchestra and made the performance much more intimate for the soloist and orchestra. I enjoyed all of the movements very much, but the 2nd movement, as beautiful as it was played, fell a bit short of my expectation. The third movement made up for it, and it was played with such energy. A very solid performance.

The main program of the night is Tchaikovsky's 4th symphony. This is the piece that I can hum from beginning to end, and so I thought I know all the details. I was wrong. Jurowski revealed that there's a lot more to this symphony than what I know. The first movement began with a big fanfare which was brilliantly played by LPO brass. Jurowski took a slower tempo than what I normally comfortable with, especially in the sections before the fate motif reappears in the middle and the end of the movement. The tempo was so dangerously slow that it can bore the audience if not executed to perfection. Jurowski maintained the intensity throughout and used the slow tempo that he maintained throughout the development section to do a big contrast during the recapitulation of both reappearances of the fate motif when he did an accelerando. That was seriously glorious. The 2nd movement was poignant, as it should be, and I am seriously impressed with the reading of the second theme of this movement. The 3rd movement is an orchestral showcase for pizzicato strings, and excruciating part for the piccolo. No trouble at all here. Each pizzicato was clear as crystal and the dynamic and colour contrast between each of them are ultimately brought out. Allegro con fuoco is the marking of the 4th movement and that's how Jurowski interpreted it: furious with neck-breaking speed. All players are on the edge of their seats, the climaxes were overwhelming and I heard more stuff that I never heard before. The finale is just otherworldly and ultimately brought down the house. After a prolonged applause and standing ovations, we were given the Russian Dance from the Nutcracker suite as an encore.

This concert was seriously awesome. Let me comment on Vladimir Jurowski. He's such magnetic and charismatic on the podium. His gestures are precise, grandeur and just so exciting to watch. His left hand is just crazy, he probably showed other conductors so many interesting things one can do with that hand only. His musical interpretation is superb. Details are being attended to, climaxes are overwhelming. His reading of Tchaikovsky's 4th symphony, especially the 1st movement is thought-provoking for me. This is the first time I felt this way about a performance. Also, he never underestimated the importance of a phrase in the entire 4th symphony. Each musical phrase is treated at utmost respect and executing them brilliantly throughout is a huge feat.

I seriously can't wait for tomorrow's concert. Tchaikovsky's violin concerto and Beethoven's Eroica are pieces that I'm too familiar with. Gave another thought-provoking reading of them tomorrow, Maestro Jurowski!

Finally, it's a bit disappointing not to have full house in Hamer Hall, although both seats in the Circle and Stalls are at capacity. So if you want to go tomorrow and wonder if there are any seats left, the answer is yes.

On a personal note, I sat next to a Russian lady in the audience. We chatted a little, and more when I found out that her musical knowledge is pretty good. She loved Mahler, and complained about the conservative taste of Australian audience. When discussing about piano concerto, she mentioned she enjoyed Saint-Saens' 2nd piano concerto and Prokofiev's. 'Which one (of the Prokofiev)?' I asked. '2nd or 3rd?'. To my surprise, she said she loved the 2nd! And to her surprise, I responded, 'Yes! finally someone who loved that piece!'. And finally, she impressed me again by saying, 'You know..there are some composers who don't like Tchaikovsky's music. Brahms doesn't like Tchaikovsky'. To which I replied, 'Yes, Tchaikovsky hates Brahms too. The feeling is mutual there'. She apparently loved my reply :). Aaaahhhhhh, how I wish everyone is as knowledgeable as this old Russian lady.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 6 October 2009 - Tchaikovsky's Pathetique

2009-10-06T22:30:00.004+11:00

Featuring:
- Kats-Chernin Re-Collecting ASTORoids - World Premiere
- Bartok Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste
- Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 'Pathetique'

Paul Daniel - Conductor

Kats-Chernin's Re-Collecting ASTORoids is a 5 movements piece that were written with direct inspiration from Astor Piazzolla, a famous Argentinian composer. Although advertised as a 5 movements piece, we were only presented with the 1st, 2nd, and 5th movements. All three movements are very much tango influenced. The first movement has a memorable muted trumpet solo and the orchestration was very sparse. Fast dance is the characteristic of the 2nd movement with a hint of nostalgia touch. In contrast to the first movement, the orchestra was used brilliantly and provided plenty of additional colour. The last movement mostly scored for strings and opened with a string quartet. I quite enjoyed this piece, and would probably love the performance better if I have been presented the whole piece. Oh yeah, the composer was in the audience, and actually introduced us to the music while being interviewed by a first violin, Sarah Curro.

Bartok's music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste didn't leave any big impressions on me when it was performed by ACO 2 (?) months ago. I think a comparison needs to be made here with MSO performance. I'll just say plainly, that afternoon MSO performance blew off ACO's of the same piece. I guess the main difference is having an actual conductor to conduct the piece. I think this piece is just too complex to be conducted by Richard Tognetti with one hand holding the violin, one hand holding the bow (instead of baton) and constantly switching his mind from conducting to playing the first violin part. The size of the orchestra also matters; MSO produced a bigger sound while maintaining the high level of virtuosity and precision required by this music. While ACO's performance was okay; MSO performance convinced me that this piece is a masterpiece. I don't want to go to the details of each movement, but the whole performance was just very intense, gripping, and each second of the performance make me breath faster and hungry for more. That's how good the performance was.

Tchaikovsky's Pathetique symphony always had an ability to nick my nerve and provoked me into a state of madness during the orchestral outburst in the middle of the first movement right after the famous pppppp for a woodwind (I'm sure it was played by the bass clarinet in the performance). Paul Daniel presented a no non-sense reading of it, and just let the music speaks for itself. The 2nd movement was lovely and the march of the third movement was very very good (this coming from an avid Tchaikovsky listener who have listened to quite a number of 'Pathetique' recordings) that I can't blame more than half of the audience committed one of the biggest mistake of clapping at the wrong place: right after the last boom of the 3rd movement of the Pathetique. The last movement was heartfelt; passionate farewell to life that I always hold dear. Superb performance although not without some imperfections from the orchestra: the first entry of the horn in the first movement is unclean for example and I probably would prefer louder brass during the outburst in the first movement, but that's just me.

Next concert: LPO. Yes, you read that right; London Philharmonic Orchestra coming to Melbourne this weekend. Can't wait to see them performing Ravel's Piano Concerto in G major; Tchaikovsky's 4th symphony (another Tchaikovsky?); Tchaikovsky's violin concerto (why is this composer so familiar?) with Vadim Repin; and Beethoven's Eroica. It'll be interesting how they performed compared to MSO. Can't wait!!!

ABC Classic FM - The Classic 100 Symphony

2009-09-20T22:57:00.003+10:00

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.

Australian Chamber Orchestra concert 13 September 2009 - Marwood, Mozart & Mendelssohn

2009-09-14T01:23:00.005+10:00

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.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 12 September 2009 - Unquiet Hearts

2009-09-13T20:06:00.002+10:00

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.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 24 August 2009 - Davis Conducts Elgar

2009-08-25T19:35:00.002+10:00

Featuring:
- Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4
- Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
- Elgar Falstaff

Jonathan Biss - Piano
Sir Andrew Davis - Conductor

Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major has long been my favourite Beethoven piano concerto. Its introvert nature made this piece feel more intimate and personal when compared to the extrovert and extravaganza of the first movement of the Emperor concerto (Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5). Jonathan Biss presented a delightful reading of this concerto, but I withheld some reservations of his performance. The magical opening chords were not so magical, but still okay. Both the orchestra and piano in the first movement sounded a bit muffled, lacking crisp and clarity in tone. Jonathan's performance is highlighted by strong bass chords presence and plenty of body gestures, and wonderful uses of rubato. I think Jonathan offered Beethoven's cadenzas for both first and last movement, but I could be wrong. In second movement, both the pianist and orchestra seemed like clicked into gear and producing wonderful tone. I enjoyed this movement a lot except from a slight moment during the not-so-together pizzicato entry of the orchestra and the soloist when the soloist played the second wistful theme which leads directly to a mini-cadenza. The conductor picked up the tempo in the last movement, and when Jonathan started his solo part, David Berlin accompanied him with his cello. Jonathan dashed through the coda, bringing the whole piece into an exhilarating ending. Huge applause followed and after several curtain calls, Jonathan gave the 2nd movement of Mozart's sonata in C major, K. 545 'Sonata Semplice' as the encore.

As the title probably suggests, the star of the concert is not Jonathan, but the conductor Andrew Davis. He showed his capability as a world class conductor in the second piece, Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis. The 'echo' group consisting of small number of strings is placed on top of the stage, where the percussion usually is. It's hard not to compare this performance to ACO's performance 2 weeks ago. IMHO, ACO's performance is very crisp while MSO's is very airy - perhaps due to significantly larger amount of strings that MSO use in the performance. Sir Andrew's masterfully build up the layers of wonderful melodies and the climax is very satisfying. Not to be outdone by ACO's section leaders, MSO's string section leaders also provided gorgeous solos. Nice, solid performance.

After the other players come in (Vaughan William's piece is only scored for strings), Sir Andrew gave a short speech about the next piece, Elgar's Falstaff and described it as 'a piece that he loved dearly'. Unfortunately, despite what Elgar said that this piece is unlike Richard Strauss' tone poem, I still think it's very much in the same spirit. Add to that my unfamiliarity of Falstaff's story and Shakespeare in general, the result is quite obvious: I can't feel as passionate with the music as Sir Andrew. I enjoy the drunken bassoon solo, but found the piece to be incomprehensible by large. A disappointing end to an otherwise wonderful concert for me.

I'm not going to Sir Andrew's next concert which is on this weekend. This is not because I don't like his conducting style (lots of big gestures!) which I enjoyed very much; but rather my unfamiliarity of the programs: Strauss' so-called-ethereal Four Last Songs; and several Wagner's music. I'm looking forward to my next MSO concert: Beethoven's Coriolan overture, Mozart's Sinfornia concertante for violin and viola, K. 364; and unfortunately my least favourite Brahms' symphony: the 3rd.

Australian Chamber Orchestra concert 9 August 2009 - Resonance

2009-08-12T00:18:00.005+10:00

Featuring:
- Peter Sculthorpe Chaconne - World Premiere
- Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis
- Bartok Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta
- Xenakis Shaar
- Richard Strauss Metamorphosen

I guess the only major orchestra in Australia that can get away with this challenging programs and still guaranteed a pretty much almost full-house is ACO. If MSO would have programmed this, I'm quite sure the hall will be maximum half full.

The concert began with Sculthorpe's Chaconne. It's written for string orchestra with a prominent violin solo played by Richard Tognetti. Throughout the piece, the strings provided ostinato accompaniment, while the solo violin floats on top, playing the melody line. Tognetti's tone was gorgeous, but sounded dynamically a tad weak. Bach's influence is quite obvious here, but it will perhaps be a blemish to compare this piece with the Chaconne from the D minor Partita.

ACO's settings is a bit unusual for the next piece, Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis. A small group of string players (6-7 players) was located slightly further at the back from the audience, providing an echo effect to the main group. I'm not familiar with this piece, but this piece is so beautiful that you just can't help liking it. The title of this concert can be used to describe ACO strings here, they're just so resonant. I very much enjoyed the little duet between the viola and violin towards the end of the piece. Magnificent and heartfelt performance.

Bartok's piece also requires unusual orchestral settings. One half of strings with violins and violas (located slightly at the back) faces the other half with cellos and basses bridge between them in the middle. Celesta, Piano and other percussions are further back. Fugue is the musical form in the first movement, which I enjoyed a lot. The second movement is a banal rhythmic section - not unlike Stravinksy's Rite of Spring. Also, IIRC, the cymbals made a very interesting noise here: instead of clashing one cymbal to the other, the percussionist scratch them. I wasn't too impressed with the third movement which has been described as 'Night Music'. Folk music started the last movement. Another thing that captured my attention is that the celestist (is that the correct term for a celesta player?) went over to the piano and played 4 hand passages with the pianist, before going back to the celesta. Overall, I don't think I enjoyed this piece as much as I would like, as it is one hell of complicated music that would benefit from repeated listening. I'll listen to it again when I have time.

One small grudge here: In the first half of the concert, I sat behind a tall guy which directly obstructs my eyesight to the center of the stage. If you haven't experienced this before, let me tell you: it's not pleasant. I really feel disadvantage of this during Bartok's complicated music, where interesting music comes out of a wide variety of instruments which I can't see because of this obstruction. I think my enjoyment of complicated music with awkward rhythms and interesting noise requiring large orchestra is enhanced by clear sight of what's going on. My other experience listening to comparably (or perhaps even more!) complex music was when I attended a concert with Schoenberg's Variations for Orchestra in the program. I can honestly say that if I listen to that piece from a recording, I would not have enjoyed it at all. However, due to the clear sight and knowledge of what's going on in the music, I enjoyed that performance the most out of the concert that featured Mozart's D minor Concerto and Ravel's Bolero. Knowing ahead that I was going to be in another music challenge with Xenakis, I changed seat in second half.

Xenakis' Shaar ('gate') did not disappoint, I actually loved it! People that hate dissonance sound would loathe this music because it's full of dissonances from beginning to the end. The strings started with glissandi, producing a siren-like sound. Very very interesting. Another interesting thing is the contrast between wonderful noises made throughout the piece. The effect of the climax in the final movement was enhanced by sharp attack from the orchestra.

Finally, Strauss' Metamorphosen finishes the concert. I can't say I was impressed by it, and to be honest, it sounded like a cheap Mahler (I'm sorry Richard Strauss!). In this case, I actually agree with Richard Strauss who famously said "I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer!". Anyway, I intend to discover Strauss' music more in the future, and I'm pretty sure I'll come across it again (and hopefully changed my opinion of it). The quote of Beethoven's funeral march from the Eroica symphony is pretty clear in the end, but as I did not enjoy and understand the work, it made no sense at all to me.

Summing up, this ACO concert is a mixed-bag for me. Vaughan Williams' and Xenakis' piece were probably the gems; I should re-listen to Bartok and Strauss music. And yes, I haven't forgotten Sculthorpe: I hope I can listen to it again.

3MBS Classically Melbourne - Orchestra Victoria: Hamer Hall - 6 August 2009

2009-08-11T22:45:00.005+10:00

Featuring:
- Carl Maria von Weber Die Freischutz overture
- Saint Saens Piano Concerto No. 2
- Melody EotvosHuygens Principle
- Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition (arr. Ravel)

Andrea Lam - Piano
Marko Letonja - Conductor

At first, I did not want to write a review for all of this, but after reading the review from the Arts Hub (which explains why I only wrote this review today), I should perhaps question some of the things mentioned there.

If anyone who thought that this concert was the best concert or fantastic or magnificent, then perhaps give my review a miss, and read this review instead.

If you're still reading, my words below might change your opinion of this concert. Proceed with caution. You have been warned.

Let me rant a little bit. I know a large number of people who said the concert they attended is fantastic, gorgeous, etc. They never found bad things to say in a concert, although perhaps the brass sections were off by miles during the performance. Bless them if that's the case, cause they will never have a bad time during even the most unbearable concert. Same case with reviews, some critics just don't seem to be able to write bad stuff about a concert.

Unfortunately, I'm not one of them. Perhaps it's my curse, but I can't deny myself when a performance does not entertain me. This concert is one of the concert that I found myself bored during the performance. Let's start with Die Freischutz which was a solid good start to the concert, although I have some reservations with the Horns in the beginning. I don't know about you, but if you read the review from the Arts Hub above, it doesn't tell you anything about the concert or even the piece itself. Romantic style? Sure, Weber it's a romantic, but an early one. React against classicism and order of Bach and Mozart? I wouldn't say so. There is one important passage in the piece which actually reminded me a lot of the first movement of Mozart's 40th symphony (you'll know it if you're familiar with Mozart 40). I would say that Weber is actually indebted to Mozart's compositional technique. Listen to the last few bars of the piece, the style is just so similar to the last few bars of Mozart's Jupiter symphony, especially the strings rhythm that ended the Jupiter.

I have heard Saint Saens 2nd Piano Concerto in the same hall, played by a fearless Simon Trpceski. I was so impressed with his performance, but less so with Andrea Lam's. She has the technique to play the concerto, but her performance was less satisfying due to several weird tempo changes in the outer movements. Also, the overall picture of how she organised her playing of this concerto is not convincing to me. The playfulness of the second movement perhaps can be brought out a little bit more. The orchestra itself missed some of the entries. One of the msot remarkable thing that I noticed is one of the front desk of second violins missed the entries in the beginning in the final movement because Andrea did not really pause much in between. She gave an encore: Chopin's Nocturne in C sharp minor, op. Post. Review in Arts Hub is wrong, the nocturne is NOT Nocturne in C minor as written in that review; and also NOT the Nocturne in C sharp minor, Op. 27 No.1 (which I think it's vastly superior piece compare to the encore). The encore piece is the Nocturne that was used in the movie The Pianist; if that helps. I enjoyed Andrea's Nocturne very much, and honestly, I think, that's her best playing of the night.

There was a presentation for composers' award that night and Melody Eotvos and another composer from Melbourne won the prizes offered. Eotvos' piece 'Huygens Principle' has interesting description. It's about an experiment with 'observing the nature of waves in a pond'. I was looking forward to listening this composition, but ended up feeling a bit disappointed, although I enjoyed some of the musical ideas presented there, like the main theme that was played in several disguise in different instruments with different dynamics (IIRC). Perhaps I can write more about it if I listen to it again, but the chance of the piece is performed again in Melbourne is pretty low or close to zero - a fact for most contemporary composition.

Finally, a piece that I both love and hate. I love Pictures at an Exhibition in its original form - as a solo piano piece -. I love Sviatoslav Richter's Sofia Recital CD which gave me a wonderful listening experience, despite the audience cough and fingers slip in a couple of places. I hate Pictures at an Exhibition arranged by other: Horowitz's own transcription for solo piano or the famous Ravel's version for orchestra. The Promenade themes played by trumpets? Poo-poo. The piece accompanied with bad brass sections? Awful. That's what happened in the concert. I'm sorry for the harsh words, but I don't think the brass section was having a good night. Ravel's arrangement made the piece too pretty, too superficial, and lost its dark-Russian character. I was totally bored in the Old Castle, stayed in that boredom level until we reached the Baba-Yaga. The main reason is not the music itself, but Ravel's arrangement just made the music lost its appeal to me.

Finally, the night got better for me: the orchestra gave an encore - the Gavotte from Prokofiev's Classical Symphony. The best performance of the night, by far.

Other thing that I didn't enjoy: donation speech. I know that this concert is a free event. But, still...

One last note, I sat at the last seat of the right side of second last row in the Balcony! Almost at the top. The acoustic is surprisingly okay, considering the distance from the seat to the orchestra. I still can't say I enjoyed that seat though: I have to look down painfully throughout the performance.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 31 July 2009 - Pastorale

2009-08-01T22:56:00.002+10:00

Featuring:
- Mozart The Magic Flute: Overture
- Sibelius Violin Concerto
- Beethoven Symphony No. 6 'Pastoral'

Natsuko Yoshimoto - Violin
Nicholas Milton - Conductor

As usual, Town Hall series concert started with Calvin Bowman's organ recital. The offering for the night was Bach's unusually quiet (instead of the usual booming/grand sound of organ) four movements (if I counted correctly) Pastorella BWV 590. Sibelius' (arr. Fricker) Fruhlingslied was the highlight of the organ recital for me with its well-crafted soaring lyricism. Vierne's finale of the Symphony 1 was a strange piece with plenty of clashing chords which are not resolved until the very end of the piece.

Mozart's giddy overture to the Magic Flute opera started out the concert. Nicholas Milton conducted the orchestra with full of energy, with an almost - in my opinion - over-exaggerated gestures. The playfulness of this piece was well-served, and the fugal themes were crisply executed. A solid start to the concert.

The conductor then spend 5 minutes chatting about the relations between virtuoso and concerto before introducing a lovely Natsuko Yoshimoto in an equally elegant blue dress to play the Sibelius concerto. My point of reference to this concerto is Jascha Heifetz's famed performance with the CSO conducted by Walter Hendl. From the quiet tremolo in the strings, the opening violin solo soared with the beautiful cadenza-like theme. I noticed that Natsuko held her violin and bow quite high, perhaps due to her height. Not that it matters, she gave a fine opening moment. The first climax of the piece (right after the prolonged trills and strings pizzicato -- around 4:20 mark in my recording), however, failed to captivate me. Natsuko's violin sound is completely drowned by the orchestra. Nicholas picked up the tempo after that, and to be honest I'm quite worried if Natsuko can play the solo part at this speed. This concerto is known to be damn hard to play after all. The solo violin passages following after the orchestral tutti is full of double melody lines, double stop passages, and all sort of challenging stuffs to a violinist. Natsuko slowed down the tempo here, but still offered a formidable performance. Not to be disrespect to any other violinists, Heifetz' technique is simply unmatchable. His reading of the same passages is faster, fiercer, and his tone is gorgeous. Natsuko's double stop passages sounded a bit harsh to me who is used to Heifetz's recording. It's still fascinating to see how quick Natsuko's hands can move up and down the fingerboard and how she superbly controlled the multiple melody lines.

The lyrical second movement was very pleasant until we reached the technically challenging middle sections. Again, I'm not convinced with the climax. The polonaise of the third movement sounded Spanish too me. I never felt this way about this movement until this performance. I like Nicholas's fast tempo, but he has to accommodate Natsuko's tempo during those technically challenging passages in the middle which disrupts the music flow a little bit. Anyway, despite all my negative comments, the audience loved the performance and we had a long applause. I myself still very much enjoyed the performance, as MSO accompanied wonderfully.

Soon after the interval, Nicholas spent around 5 minutes trying to tie up his feeling visiting Melbourne with the Pastoral's program. After that, MSO gave a wonderful reading of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony. The tempo flows effortlessly, and there's enough lyricism to please the audience. My favourite recording of this symphony is Bruno Walter's recording on Sony. I will forever be overwhelmed by that recording, but I suppose I sometimes would prefer to enjoy a slightly less overwhelming performance such as MSO's that night. After all, it's quite strange to be teary-eyed by the end of this symphony, feeling happy and uplifted are probably what you want to feel like. Anyway, I digress. For the performance, I noticed a lot of things: the timpanist only played in the Thunderstorm movement and also the little bit of the opening of the last movement. I'm not sure if this symphony is timpanists' favourite piece. The double bass sections perhaps got a little bit over-excited that night in the Thunderstorm movement, but it's all in good spirit as the double bass players smiled to each other after their little tricks. Credits also must be given to the winds section for their marvelous performance (esp. the Oboe solo).

People leaving early might be disappointed to miss tonight's encore: The overture to Marriage of Figaro. Slight complaint here: that same piece was already featured in the first Town Hall concert. Why don't MSO give me a different encore? Beggars can't be choosers, I guess.

The performance is a full-house. Well, strictly speaking not every seat is occupied, but 98-99% of them have someone on top. It's a welcome sight change than the poorly attended Hamer Hall concerts.

Next concert: ACO's Bartok and MSO's Beethoven Piano concerto #4 in forthcoming weeks.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 27 July 2009 - Lighting the Darkness

2009-07-27T22:00:00.002+10:00

Featuring:
- Mahler Symphony No. 9

Ilan Volkov - Conductor

Mahler. Wouldn't you just die without him? Sigh.

Alright, the concert was emotionally draining. Ilan Volkov presented a very solid reading of Mahler 9 where extreme in dynamics and tempo are pushed to the limit. Let's break it down one by one.

In the opening of the first movement, there was a slightly unclean entry of the 2nd horn. Also just to nitpick things a bit further, I would prefer the first entry of the 4th horn to be softer. After that, tempo wise, I love the unveiling of the 2 note sighing motif. I could talk more about the entry of each instruments, but I'll stop here. Generally, the mood shift and dynamics which are the characteristics of the first movement are well done. Climaxes are overwhelming, although the last climax in which the trombones and timpani came back and bolt down the irregular heart beat motif was not as strong as I want it to be. The duet of flute and horn in the end was effective, but MSO didn't come as clean as they could have in the very last note of the first movement. Despite all these little nitpickings that I did, I enjoyed this movement very much.

I can't say that the 2nd movement of Mahler 9 spoke directly to my heart in general, regardless of who performed it. There's wonderful music there, but that's just it. I still love the 3 dances in this movement, especially the last dance whose motif is derived from the sighing motif of the first movement. Again, the tempo change between the slow (1st and 3rd) dances and fast (2nd) is drastic. What I love the most in this performance is the strong colour from the contrabassoon in the closing bars of this movement.

From the tranquility of village dances, we are thrown into cosmopolitan lifestyle in the third movement. What an achievement by Mahler! He pictured the chaos of city life with fugal music and God knows how many lines of music playing at the same time. The chorale like melody in the middle section played by the trumpet (wonderfully in this concert!) provided a welcome mood change. I was quite touched with it before that melody is mocked and tossed around right after the heart-touching tenderness moment from the development of the chorale. Moment after that, we're back into the city streets again. Chaotic music returns, and the music picked up the pace and ending up being an orchestral show piece. Small complaint, the snare drum that appeared out of nowhere just before the very end could be louder to enhance the surprise effect.

The last movement. Oh, what gorgeous music this is. Ilan's tempo is to my liking, letting all the strings sing out beautifully in the opening. The tension builds up throughout. Jumping straight to the meditative section where the woodwinds with the harp accompaniment dominated the melody before THE climax of the piece: these passages of 3 minutes long are the moment where I was undone. Tears just flow down, I can't help it. I was overwhelmed with all sort of emotions when the strings came in at fortissimo when the music burst out again to the opening motif of the finale. I couldn't care less of what happened after that. I still vividly remembered the trombones, horns and cymbals crashing down just before all the instruments die down just for the strings to sing out the main theme. Ilan took this moment just a bit too fast to my liking, but really I couldn't care less. Not until towards the cello solo in the end did I regain my composure again. The ending is bittersweet and heartfelt. There's a good 30 seconds to 1 minute silence in the end after the music ended.

Orchestra playing wise: strings and woodwinds were the pick tonight. Wilma Smith, Katharine Brockman, and David Berlin gave wonderful solos throughout the piece. The horns were a bit sketchy tonight. While still wonderful, timpani could've sounded a bit punchier. There were a small number of miss-entries, but the playing standard is very high overall. The hall is around 60-70% full, a shame for what was a wonderful Mahler 9 reading.

Next concert: Beethoven 6 and Sibelius Violin Concerto; this Friday.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 18 July 2009 - White Heat

2009-07-18T16:13:00.002+10:00

Featuring:
- Fraser Trainer for the living (Violin Concerto)
- Janacek The Fiddler's Child
- Stravinsky The Rite of Spring

Viktoria Mullova - Violin
Ilan Volkov - Conductor

This concert is one of the concerts that I'm not sure whether to subscribe or not. To be honest when I was finalising my concert choice last year, I never heard about Fraser Trainer or Viktoria Mullova, have no idea about Janacek's The Fiddler's Child and was uninformed with Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. I guess The Rite of Spring is the deciding factor after all, and I thought it's time to plunge myself into Stravinsky's ballet music.

The decision is paid off, the performance of Rite of Spring was electrifying. Anyway, let's start with Fraser Trainer's Violin Concerto with Viktoria Mullova as the soloist. It's interesting that the notes mentioned that this composition is a Concerto for AMPLIFIED Violin and Orchestra. I did notice that the 2 keyboards were amplified, but I'm not sure whether the violin is amplified or not. This piece is inspired by a poem by a British poet Lemn Sissay titled 'Advice for the living'. The unique thing about this poem is the word 'dead' is almost used in every line. I recalled 'dead straight, dead right, something dead, etc.' when Fraser who was present in the audience read aloud the poem. The last line of the poem is, IIRC, 'After all, life is not worth living, if there is nothing to die for'. For this piece, Trainer requires the orchestra to be setup in a different fashion, with the orchestra is divided into three groups, Left, Right and Center. Violin, cello, and bass sections are divided into two equal size, occupying Left and Right sections. On top of that, each section is topped up by a vibraphone, marimba, harp, and keyboard. The center sections contained all the brass and wind sections, and violas. A very unique setup which I haven't seen before.

MSO's size is enormous for the piece and there's nothing more disappointing than listening to a piece of uninspired music that requires large orchestra. This violin concerto is not the case, fortunately, and I was impressed with the rhythmicity of the piece in both outer movements (there's 3 movements in total). Main motif of this piece is a simple recurring rhythmic pattern introduced by the soloist in the beginning. As I've mentioned earlier, this piece is very rhythmic and the writing for different sections are very free. Different time signatures, plenty of offbeats which just seem not to fit the piece at all. Underneath all of these seemingly disorganised rhythms are the main motifs and important linking blocks in the music development. The soloist lines are also very free, almost like a fantasy. Also at times, it might seem to be obsessed by a small pattern. Ilan Volkov conducted MSO very well throughout this difficult and tricky piece.

It's not mentioned in the program notes, but I think I detected a Dies Irae motif in the last movement, which I think is a welcome wonderful effect. There's this moment in the finale where the violin solo which plays different lines than the rest of the violins sections unexpectedly joined by the whole sections to play the same melody, producing a great moment. Anyway, I think it's a good piece, and enjoying it live makes much more sense because you can see how the melodies or motifs are passed around in different orchestra sections. Good start to the concert.

After this piece, I half-expected Janacek's piece to be rhythmically driven, so that we have one unifying theme of the concert: rhythm (the Rite of Spring is a very very rhythmic-based piece). Unfortunately, this is not the case. I'm not gonna type up what Fiddler's Child is about because this piece is disappointing. I didn't find it interesting, although I'm grateful because the viola sections were given a rare chance to shine.

Finally, the orchestra size becomes larger in size for the performance of TROS. Imagine this: 8 horns (there's even Wagner tubas), 5 trumpets, 3 trombones, 2 tubas, 2 timpanis, a big percussion sections, and around 20 woodwind players. It was simply electrifying, from the mysterious bassoon solo to the very end. Abrupt rhythmic music following the introduction is simply amazing. On top of that, add the big sound that the orchestra made, thumping bass drums and timpani, and those brass dissonances : your hair will simply stand on end. I don't feel the need to highlight everything in this performance. Simply put, if you missed the performance, you missed witnessing something special. The performance itself is not well-attended, I'd say the hall is only half full.

Credits must be given to the conductor, for his success in pushing the players to their limits and gave a truly amazing experience. I'm looking forward to attending his Mahler 9 rehearsal and concert next week.

Proper blog post..

2009-06-29T22:59:00.006+10:00

I haven't been posting new music that I have discovered for a long long time. Partly because of my busy schedule, and partly because I don't feel the urge to write about them.

I joined a choir a while ago, and it changed my way of listening to choral music. After I learned to sing Mozart's requiem, now I can fully enjoy the part where I don't really like before, e.g. Domine Jesu and Hostias. Other movements became more attractive and interesting, e.g. Kyrie, Rex Tremendae, Confutatis and I found more pleasure listening to them compare to my previous experiences before joining the choir.

In the past few months or so, I've been listening to Faure's Requiem. What a great piece this is. Sure, it doesn't have the Dies Irae sequence, but the music simplicity (compare to say Verdi's or Brahms' Requiem) is simply heavenly. Most people would no doubt associate the Pie Jesu and In Paradisum when they heard about Faure's requiem. They're both fantastic movements, but the movement that I love the most is Sanctus. I can always imagine heavenly images when I heard harp arpeggios in the beginning of Sanctus. Also, being a tenor myself, I always enjoy the Tenor entry after the horn passages in the middle ('Hosanna in excelsis'). Other movements have their own charm, such as the baritone solo in Libera Me and the little 'Dies Irae' episode which sounded a bit underwhelming. As a whole, I still very much love this requiem.

The new choral music that I listened to recently is Haydn's Nelson Mass. Whoa, what a piece! I fell in love with the dramatic Kyrie the first time I listened to it. Gloria is an upbeat movement in the beginning, with memorable bass solo in the middle, and back to the same melody as the opening melody. I'm less keen on Credo, but still enjoy the 'descendit descaelis'. I guess I would be less keen on Credo in every mass if I always compare how composers set the 'Et vitam venturi' text with Beethoven's setting of the text as a massive fugue in his Missa Solemnis. Sanctus starts off solemnly before the 'Pleni Sunt Caeli' section changes the mood completely. The Benedictus is wonderful to sing at, especially during the most dramatic (IMO) in the whole piece where the trumpets and drums play fortissimo passages against the choir singing the word 'Benedictus qui venit in nomine domini' just before the 'Hosanna in excelsis' section in the end. Agnus Dei rounded up the whole work with upbeat 'dona nobis pacem'.

In piano concerto world, I'm still discovering Prokofiev's piano concertos. After the fantastic third piano concerto, I'm quite surprised with the different mood in his second piano concerto. The cadenza in the first movement is quite obvious fiendishly difficult to play, and of course the tricky running scales of the piano in the Scherzo. Heavy brass opens up the third movement and will catch a lot of people off guard. But what impressed me the most is the last movement. There's this passage around the 6 minutes mark in my recording where the piano enters after a fermata from the orchestra. The piano played a very eerie, satirical melody of the main theme. I always feel unsettled here. I don't know what to feel with the finale where it feels like the piano is arguing with the orchestra and finally had enough and ended it (and also the piece) with a big chord with the timpani in the end. A true masterpiece which made plenty of impacts to the listener!

I have also been exploring Chopin's Nocturnes - opp. 9 and 15 - . I very much prefer op. 9 nocturnes to op. 15 due to their more memorable melody and elegance. Op. 9 No. 2 and No. 3 are my favourites among these six nocturnes (3 each from both sets). For me, Ballade No. 3 is rediscovered when I listened to Cortot playing it in the EMI set. Whoa, what difference he brought to the piece! Just a couple of seconds in the beginning and I know that his playing is going to change how I think about this piece. His playing of other ballades is wonderful as well, do yourself a favour and get the recording of Cortot playing the ballades! They're so different (yet feel so right) than the other ballades that I've listened so far (Rubinstein, Zimmerman, and Richter).

Finally, I'll round up by just mentioning the 5th symphony of Dvorak. A very much underrated work with plenty of beautiful melodies. I loved it when Dvorak brought back the main theme of the first movement in the very end of the piece where it was played by one of the brass (trumpet?). That moment always made me very happy. The 2nd and 3rd movements are good fun as well. You might recall Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto in the opening 4 notes of the 2nd movement of this symphony (I noticed this courtesy of Wikipedia).

Until next time when I have listened to more interesting music and have the mood to write more about them.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 26 June 2009 - The Dance of Life

2009-06-26T22:03:00.004+10:00

Featuring:
- Mendelssohn Ruy Blas: Overture
- Mendelssohn Concerto for Two Pianos in E major
- Rachmaninov Symphonic Dances

Silver-Garburg - Piano Duo
Yan Pascal Tortelier - Conductor

Before attending this concert, I had a few drinks and let's just say that it is something to be avoided in future concerts. As a consequence of that, I couldn't concentrate properly on the first half of the concert. It's so unfortunate as Mendelssohn is one of my favourite composer. That being said, based on my half-concentration, I don't think Ruy Blas overture is as interesting as the other famous overtures by Mendelssohn. It has its moments, but not as memorable as the other overtures. I was looking forward to the performance of the concerto for two pianos, but it ended up being an okay performance with muddy sound from the orchestra. The third movement was the the movement that I enjoyed the most. Sivan Silver and Gil Garburg then gave a wonderful encore which snapped me out from doziness: a four-hand piano performance of Stravinksy's Russian Dance from Petrouchka. Click here if you feel like watching a performance of it. They took the piece faster, played better, and better in-sync to each other than the pair in the video.

Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances is not one of my favourite works out of his symphonic outputs. I thought it was not too memorable, doesn't have the 'it' tune. But, I gladly changed my mind after today's performance. Tortelier's has wonderful insight to this piece and I noticed what's missing in the recording that I have. Those missing pieces made a big difference in enjoyment of listening to this piece. I was intrigued by Tortelier's treatment of the first theme of the funny marking 'Non-allegro' movement. Instead of driving the marching rhythm it fast, he took it quite slow, and therefore revealing something that has been missing in my recording of the piece: the Dies Irae motif. Wonderful attacks from MSO winds helped too! The brass that opens the second movement is quite unusual.I don't think I would ever associate a Waltz movement with brass instruments. But they too soon gave away to waltzing rhythm in string pizzicatos. Finally, Tortelier let loose and drive the orchestra to its capability, unleashing a rousing finale. Fine playing from the orchestra enhanced the excitement. But, what I commend the most from the performance is Tortelier's ability to make me appreciate every moment in the piece which I normally found boring.

Despite my concentration lapse in the first half, the concert made me leaving the concert hall in upbeat mood. Tortelier is a wonderful conductor, and I'm impressed with him conducting Symphonic Dances without both the score and the baton. I would love to see him back conducting MSO in the future.

Finally, MSO (or the Arts Centre) did something stupid with the program notes. Instead of leaving those program notes outside in the foyer area, they kept them on a special stand. This is all fine, but the moronic part is they kept the stand behind the hall's doors! Therefore, people can't get a copy of the programs to read before the doors are opened which usually happened 15 minutes before the performance.

Next concert: Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Should be great.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 20 May 2009 - Victory!

2009-06-21T20:52:00.003+10:00

Featuring:
- Debussy Printemps, orchestrated by Henri Busser
- Elgar Cello Concerto
- Prokofiev Symphony No. 5

Matthew Barley - Cello
Yan Pascal Tortelier - Conductor

Despite my rant against the change in programming, I really enjoyed this performance. Debussy's colourful Printemps with the beautiful main theme first played by the flute in the beginning and transformed throughout the 2 movements of this piece is a delight. Although it wasn't Debussy who orchestrated this piece, it nevertheless retained a charming trademark Debussy orchestral writing. I was less impressed with the theme of the second movement: it was too popular sounding, not unlike the main theme of the finale of Franck's symphony. Not of it matters so much as the music pleased me very much and MSO's playing was wonderful here, at least until the piece ended! There was a little accident in the end where after the piece reached its marvelous climax in the end, a percussionist accidentally dropped the cymbals, ruining the silence in the end. It was quite a hilarious moment, and some MSO musicians actually let out a big 'awwwwwwww' noise. The audience also laughed at it and gave a warm applause.

Matthew Barley gave a wonderful reading of the much beloved Elgar's cello concerto. His cello produced a very rich-sounding tone and his technique is impeccable. He displayed a very mature reading of the concerto and played wonderfully in the third movement.

The performance of Prokofiev's fifth symphony impressed me most. Here, Tortelier conducted without a score and produced wonderful interpretation of this symphony. After unsettling me successfully in the 'unstable' slow first movement, he danced through the relentless Scherzo rhythm in the second movement. The third movement grew from being somber to violent and eventually turned into a sort of funeral march with plenty of sarcastic trills in the winds and strings. The finale is a tour-de-force for the (large) symphony orchestra. The orchestra for this piece is very huge, requiring a large number of strings, woodwinds, massive percussion sections, and a piano (this also happened in Debussy's piece). It's a real treat to watch a large number of percussionists playing all sort of instruments, providing additional level of excitements into this relentless marching finale.

I'm very impressed with Tortelier's interpretations of all the pieces and looking forward to his next concert where he'll be conducting Rachmaninov' symphonic dances next week.

Isabelle Faust - J.S. Bach Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin - Concert 1

2009-06-16T22:04:00.004+10:00

Featuring:
- Bach Sonata No. 1 in G minor, BWV 1001
- Bach Partita No. 1 in B minor, BWV 1002
- Bach Sonata No. 2 in A minor, BWV 1003

Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin sit on top of the summit of violin playing, no question about that. They're a set of masterpieces that require violinists to play at their best and more to convey the meaningful musical messages behind those notes. Personally, after listening to a great performance of these pieces (e.g. Milstein's or Szeryng's recording), I always have an image in my mind where I face a black ocean of limitless possibilities and uttering 'Bach is like an ocean'. They're so great that every time I listen to them it's like a spiritual experience.

Those transcendental experiences unfortunately didn't come to me tonight. Isabelle Faust has a gorgeous technique producing wonderful trills and double stop with multiple voices easily, her tone is sweet, a little bit laid back, and every note is crystal clear. Her playing was very much relaxed with her eyes fixed to the score in front of her with feminine sound. Anyway, even with all of those good things, she missed out in engaging the audience to the music. The opening adagio of the sonata was dispatched easily, but I missed the emotional impact of it. It sounded too polished. The fugues (of both first and second sonata) were not engaging, Isabelle focused too much on the clarity of those double stops notes while sacrificing the flow of the music. Siciliano's tempo was dragging, but the fine performance of the exciting Presto renewed my hope in her playing.

Next was the first partita, the Allemande was well-played continuing the fine form of the previous Presto. I don't like the tempo of the Double following it. Next Courante and Double were okay, but the Sarabande dragged for too long. I had further problems with the Bourree: this dance movement didn't feel like a dance at all and it's all too obvious from how she played the opening of the bourree. Luckily the Double in the end was quite good.

In the interval, I reflected on the performance and noticed that I enjoyed Isabelle's playing the most in fast movements where she actually let herself go and actually attacked the music. And then I thought that maybe she was playing 'safe'. She shouldn't have and should have let herself be more adventurous. Also, in those slow movements, the phrases sounded a little bit disconnected with each other and probably the main reason why I wasn't connected with them.

After the interval, the Grave opening of the second sonata received a much better performance, but the fine performance did not follow after the chords in the end of Grave leading directly to the Fugue. As I described earlier, the Fugues were disappointing. The flow of the music is disrupted throughout due to her emphasis on playing the notes clearly and accurately, ruining the fugal runs. The Andante of Second Sonata is perhaps the favourite movement of mine apart from the Chaconne in this set of masterpieces. Here her playing was wonderful, and apart from various silence that lasted too long, I quite enjoyed it. The finely played last Allegro rounded up the night.

Some more notes on how Isabelle played: she was really gentle (I would say she 'caressed') on the violin, never fiercely attacking it even during fast passages. Her playing is very controlled, but her tempo tends to be on the slower side. These factors above probably made me felt that her playing is 'safe'. A much lamented attitude I think, especially in live performance.

Isabelle will perform the other partitas and sonata tomorrow night. I'm not sure if I would want to go again as her Bach playing doesn't suit my taste. That and the fact that I have my exam on Friday (freaking statistics!!). But, I want to listen to the Chaconne, the Sarabande, the Giga, the Preludio...ARGGHHHH frustrating... Sigh...

I guess for now, I probably should be happy with Milstein and Szeryng.

Oh lastly, if anyone reading this should worry if there are seats available tomorrow: Don't be. Tonight's performance wasn't that well-attended (250 or 300 people at max?). I'm pretty sure it'll be the same tomorrow (well, unless the 'Chaconne' works its magic and attracts a full house).

Next concert: Elgar's Cello Concerto and Prokofiev 5th symphony with MSO this Saturday. Rant: (how dare them! I want to listen to Haydn's Cello concerto which they substituted. No disrespect for the cellist or the piece itself, but I'm pretty sure Jacqueline du Pre's recording can't be topped. I rather listen to Haydn's CC live to celebrate his 200th passing. And the fact that I've listened to Elgar's CC live last year in MSO's free Sidney Myer concert).

Australian Chamber Orchestra concert 14 June 2009 - Great Romantics Tour

2009-06-14T17:25:00.004+10:00

Featuring:
- Ian Munro Black is the Night World Premiere
- Brahms String Sextet No. 2 in G major, Op. 36
- Schoenberg Transfigured Night

Richard Tognetti - Artistic Director & Lead Violin.

A 'dark' concert. That's what I would like to call this concert. Brilliant programming with unifying themes of dark night and love. Oh, and ACO is not really an orchestra for this concert: all programs are string sextets requiring only 2 violins, 2 violas, and 2 cellos for the whole program.

Ian Munro's Black is the Night is a piece based on the poem of the same name by Judith Wright. I have no idea who Judith Wright is, but based on the chattering of people around me, I gather that she's quite a well-known Australian poet. The composition and the poem are highly interesting. The poem described the grimness of the night, rising out from the bottom of the sea where it can't be reached by light. The bottom of the sea is so dark that the no-eye deep-sea fish stay still while bones of the departed humans will never reach there (my description of the poem might seem silly, but that's my best attempt to describe the poem without having to publish the poem itself here, of which I'm pretty sure have no permission to do so). The composition reflects on this poem: starting from the dark, work itself through the series of pizzicato (perhaps representing the sea which text is present in the poem?) before the main opening return backs in the end. IIRC, there are plenty of silence in the music, dramatising the absence of movement. I couldn't describe it more in detail due to memory lapse, but my initial impression of the piece was certainly a good one.

Also, I should probably note that I haven't listened to any of the pieces programmed today, and I am in no position to comment much on the style of string chamber music playing which to my regret is something that I am not familiar with yet. Someday, after discovering all of major symphonies by Bruckner and Shostakovich, I promise I'll pick myself up and explore the intimacy of chamber music.

Brahms' only chamber music that I know is his Clarinet Trio of which the second movement brought me down to tears during the live performance by Ensemble Liaison last year. His second string sextet, written in attempt to forget his ex-fiancee, impressed me in the beautiful opening movement with its lyrical melody. The next movement is a slow dance, but with a contrasting fast tempo in the trio section and ended with a brilliant coda. Brahms' adagios which usually delight me, somehow eluded me in this piece. It does not have the poignancy found in his clarinet trio, or his other orchestral works. The finale was spiced with plenty of uplifting tempo and ACO's characteristic sprightful attack combined with the energy created by the standing-up performance generated much pleasure. The visual effect of string players playing the fugal finale enhanced this fine performance.

As much as I love Brahms' music, I think the performance of Schoenberg's Verlkarte Nacht 'Transfigured Night' is the crown of the concert. While already hinting towards atonality, this piece is written in late-romantic style (not that different than Mahler's symphonies really). I even think the opening is very similar to the opening of Mahler 9 (which is written later). The mood of this piece varies from the frightful attacks into the tenderness of solo violin or cello in the space of just a couple of bars. It's a musical journey from despair (characterised with plenty of unresolved dissonances) to salvation (or forgiveness) which is the essence of the poem it based on. ACO's string sextet playing provides plenty of drama where it is necessary, but it's beautifully restraint on moments of tenderness, for example in the duet between first violin and first cello while the other strings provided subdued background support. In the end, the despairs present throughout the music seem to be transfigured away into hope (with those finally resolved dissonances) just as the cool eerie night has been transfigured into a finally unmistakable warm bright night of hope.

On a personal note, I sat next to two people who applauded enthusiastically after the performance of Verklarte Nacht. They are possibly the only people in the circle who shouted bravo in the circle seats. Anyway, when the applause finally died down, one of them commented something like (I didn't hear his comment properly) 'Melbourne's audience is not very enthusiastic in their applause' or something. I agree that the performance deserved a longer applause (and probably more 'Bravo'), but it's hard to give uplifting enthusiastic applause after such intense performance. Personally, I don't even want to listen to any music for one hour after the performance and prefer to be silent for a period of time after the performance.

In conclusion, another good concert from the ACO. I would probably commend them for avoiding over-the-top romantic playing of these intensely romantic pieces. Looking forward to their next performance in August.

Imogen Cooper Recital - 25 May 2009

2009-05-26T00:03:00.005+10:00

Featuring:
- 16 German Dances, D. 783
- Piano Sonata No. 18 in G major, D. 894
- Six Moment Musicals, D. 780
- Piano Sonata No. 19 in C minor, D. 958

I was really looking forward to the recital, but this recital ended up being a mixed-bag recital. The biggest let down is not the artist, it's the Elisabeth Murdoch Hall at the Melbourne Recital Centre. While I have no problem or whatsoever with the hall acoustic in my previous 3 visits, this time I understand some people's complaint about the acoustic of being muddy. The piano sound did not arrive clearly to the rear seats of the stall and I noticed this problem as soon as Imogen played the first notes of the German Dances. The German Dances was played in a jumbled order to the reason that it's not explained in the program note. It was an okay performance, nothing new or different and the muddy sound did not help.

I have just recently being acquainted with Schubert's D. 894. Another sonata, another gem. I love Schubert's piano sonatas :). Right from the opening of the sonata, the whole journey takes you into a long journey of calm, wonderful soundscape. Imogen's playing exploits the lyrical beauty of the opening movement, and those thundering climaxes in the middle section were very well played. Again, if I can get a seating with better acoustic, I could have enjoyed those moment more. The second movement is less successful, I don't know if it's the playing or the freaking acoustic again, I was almost bored here. The third and fourth movements fared better.

A little bit of digression: the recital hall is 30% empty at the stalls. My first thought is "that's not too bad if the balcony is 80% full", but my fear came true when I looked up during the interval and saw an empty balcony and wing sections (gasp!). This recital really brought to life all the grim news that I heard about the problems with the recital hall: bad acoustic and low ticket sales. During the interval, I moved to an empty third row seat which is closer to my seat during Katia's recital compared to the back seat that I was seating during first interval. To my horror, when Imogen started playing the first moment musical, I was taken aback how the sound changed from muddy sound to crystal clear. A number of other audience actually did switch the seats and from the comments after the concert, they all agreed that switching seat made a big impact. I now seriously have to stop promoting the recital hall as acoustically wonderful - it all depends on where you are seating. If you're in for a chamber music recital, I would definitely recommend you to sit at the front row seats. I haven't had problem with balcony seats, but I would reexamine the acoustic there the next time I'm sitting up there.

Back to the music: the moment musical are exquisitely played. The first 3 are wonderful, lyricism is plenty in this performance. Imogen perhaps over attacked the opening of 4th moment musical, and I'm actually quite worried about her performance in the 5th as she made few mistakes when playing large chords of the piece. The 6th moment musical is a poetic one and its style suited more to Imogen's playing.

Dramatic chords open up Schubert's C minor sonata, Imogen's tone is slightly harsh and I've found that her fortissimo borders on banging the piano. Also, there's this wonderful passage in this movement where the bass played a very satirical melody just before the main theme came back after the development, and also just before the end of the piece. Here, Imogen placed less impact than I would have liked, but I'm just nitpicking. Imogen playing shone during the lyrical sections and the glorious Adagio of the sonata is the highlight of the recital for me. The gradual crescendo building in the middle section of the movement still sounded a little bit too harsh, but maybe I was sitting too close to the piano? I don't know. Third movement was charming and the fourth movement repeating main theme never sounded boring which is a good thing. As a whole though, I still very much prefer Richter's and Pollini's playing of the piece in their recordings.

To sum up, I think tonight's programming was very generous, and even after the problem that I had with the acoustic, I still very much came out uplifted with Schubert's glorious and 'heavenly-length' music.

Musica Viva presents Katia Skanavi - 16 May 2009

2009-05-17T01:30:00.005+10:00

Featuring:
- Schubert Piano Sonata No. 14 in A minor, D. 784
- Vine Piano Sonata no. 3
- Chopin Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise Brillante
- Chopin Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58

After a few days of hesitating between tonight's concert with the earlier concert which basically features the same program except that in the earlier concert (on last Tuesday) Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 2 'Funeral March' will be featured instead of tonight's Third sonata. I was too busy on Tuesday and finally chose this concert. I went to the box office 2 hours before the performance and after a small chat with the attendant, I discovered that there is a student rush ticket for the performance. I sat there waiting for 1 hour and hoped that the concert won't be sold out until then. Luck was on my side, I can still get a seat, but alas, I can only get seats on the right side of the hall - which means I can't see the pianist hands!

The recital began by Katia, wearing a black dress, walked to the piano, bowed to the audience, sat down and start launching herself at the Schubert's sonata. The dark opening march caught me off guard, especially the intensity of how she built the first fortissimo. The second lyrical theme was played delicately showing well controlled pianissimo passages. The rest of the movement was brilliant, as well as the second movement with its 'sarcastic' melody interrupting the flow of the main melody. I am less impressed with the third movement, probably more because the main theme is not as interesting as the other two. Nevertheless, the overall playing of Schubert sonata was gorgeous.

Carl Vine's piano sonata is better than I expected, and it is quite interesting. The scattered main motifs in the beginning of the piece are developed in various disguise. Katia's playing in the central rhythmic section was wonderful, but I detected a slight slower tempo than the indicated Presto during the last virtuosic part of the sonata.

After the interval, the flowing arpeggio accompaniment of Chopin Spianato's was played and the beautiful cantabile main theme soon followed. Here, Katia immersed herself and showed a lot of body gestures not present in the performance of previous two sonatas. In the polonaise followed, I have a minor complaint on how she held back the tempo during some passages. And surprise surprise, I actually kind of miss the beautiful horn (?) passages at the end of the piece if the performance is accompanied by the orchestra. It's not that the passage is totally non-existent in the solo piano version, it's just the timbre difference.

I am not entirely familiar with Chopin's 3rd sonata. I thought the opening of the first movement is too turbulent, but the triumphant ending made me very happy. The second movement is a lively piece with plenty of quaver notes running up and down, and is written in simple ternary form. Katia's magical playing arrived in the 3rd movement. Here the time stands still. An effective use of silence and beautifully controlled cantabile playing made this movement my favourite of the night. Such serenity and sonority that she brought out, I don't even want it to end. The finale impressed me less, but you can't resist the coda in the end. Huge applause followed.

Katia gave two delightful encores. The first encore has a dance-characteristic played in the left hand, I don't know this piece. The second encore is the C-sharp minor Nocturne (Op. posth). Splendid, if you love Chopin's Nocturnes. And that wraps up the night.

A wonderful concert. Katia's wonderful playing and gracefulness will stay in my mind for a long time to come.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 15 May 2009 - Dream

2009-05-15T22:50:00.003+10:00

Featuring:
- Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night's Dream: Overture
- Rachmaninov Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
- Tchaikovsky Selections from The Nutcracker and Swan Lake

Alexey Yemtsov - Piano
Andrew Grams - Conductor

Tonight was a very very memorable night. Despite the corniness of the concert title, the relatively light music, and my low expectation of Tchaikovsky's ballet music treated seriously - one man changed all of that: the conductor Andrew Grams. I will talk more about it later.

Let's start with our usual organ recital by Calvin Bowman. I arrived 5 seconds late, and I can see the ushers closing the door. One of them then accompanied me to enter from the rear entry. I then sat at the last row, just a little bit inside in the row. More people then came, some of them sat in front of me. All perfectly fine until a couple asked me to give them some space so that they can walk past me while I immersed myself in Bach's music. Annoyed a little bit, since they could have walked till the end of the row without disturbing me. I almost snapped when an usher tapped my shoulder asking me to move a little bit inwards the row. He was the one who asked me to sit at the back row in the first place! The latecomers shouldn't be prioritised, especially when they are already late for 15 minutes. The usher should have suggested something cleverer like asking them to go the long way to get a seat without disturbing anybody. Wasn't happy with him, I did not move inwards, I gave some space for an elderly couple to move past, and then after the first Bach piece, I moved 6 or 7 rows in front where nobody is sitting. Then the rest of the recital is wonderful.

The first Bach piece was 'Piece d'orgue' Fantasia in G major, BWV 572. A very interesting piece with a two-note motif present towards the piece. The second piece was an arrangement of Bach's Organ Concerto in G major, BWV 592 by Ernst (not sure who he is). Lively two outer movements with a dark slow movement in between (IIRC). Next piece is Bridge's Lento - lovely music, not unsuitable as a gorgeous film music. Gigout's 'Adoramos in Aeternum' closed the recital beautifully. Fantastic performance from Calvin Bowman tonight. One slight complaint about MSO: they ran out of organ recital programs. I couldn't get one copy of it, but there were only around 50 people attending the organ recital. Eventually, I got a copy courtesy of a nice lady sitting beside me.

At a short glance, tonight's program consists of 'pretty' music. Nothing 'deep' like a Beethoven or Brahms or Mahler symphony. All are quite popular, especially Tchaikovsky's ballet music. This usually spells disaster in terms of performance: the orchestra can just play sloppily and the audience can still enjoy the music. But that didn't happen tonight. Mendelssohn's overture was played beautifully. The rapid strings notes came out as clear as crystal while never losing the excitement. MSO's woodwinds section chirps throughout. Brass and horns let their presence felt while not overpowering the strings. MSO just played so differently tonight, it was wonderful. The deliberate tempo slowing just before the recapitulation of the rapid strings works like charm. The finale is as fantastic as it could have been and the overture set the tone for the night: the audience is in for wonderful time.

Alexey Yemtsov came on the stage playing Rachmaninov's famous rhapsody. Instead of the usual muffled tone from the grand piano, he produced brilliant clear tone. Accompanied by the in-form orchestra, he blasted through the rhapsody, playing brilliantly throughout. The Dies Irae variation is heavy, cadenza like variations played lightning fast. Poetic is his approach during the slow variations leading up to the gorgeous 18th variation. He dashed through the finale as it was nothing, excitement is never far from his performance. As an icing on the cake, he gave an encore which unfortunately I'm not very familiar with. My best guess: impressionist (Debussy or Ravel piece?) or late romantic music.

I honestly didn't expect much from the performance of Tchaikovsky's ballet music, even after a great first half of the concert. My expectations were turned upside down after a few bars of the Nutcracker music. Tchaikovsky's music, being too popular, has always been treated lightly by a lot of performers and audience. Andrew Grams showed us how the Nutcracker can sound like if you treat Tchaikovsky's music as a masterpiece. The Nutcracker excerpt starts with the Entry of Clara and the Prince in the second act, followed by Spanish, Arabian, Chinese, Russian dances and Dance of the Reed Pipes. Percussion section shines here and have I already mentioned that the woodwinds played faultlessly tonight? The mother ginger music and the charming, ever popular Waltz of the flowers end this fabulous performance.

The crown achievement of the night is the performance of excerpts from Swan Lake. The all too familiar Swan Lake theme got an invigorating treatment. Climaxes are as loud as they can be, emphasising dramatic elements of Swan Lake story. The Waltz is so fantastic that when it ended, some people just can't help but applaud to it. Wilma Smith and David Berlin gave wonderful solos in Pas d'action of Odette and the Prince. The concert ended in a super overwhelming Finale of Swan Lake and the audience raptured in the end! Some of them even gave standing ovations. If I were to sum up that performance in one word it will be 'electrifying'. What a memorable night. This can easily be one of my favourite MSO concerts, equaling the great concerts of Mahler 1, 2 and Verdi's Requiem.

This night was made even memorable for some non-musical reasons. There are two small interruptions in the middle of this concert. The first one was a person almost collapsed while walking up the stairs in the middle of slow variations of Rachmaninov's Rhapsody. The second was in the middle of the Nutcracker excerpts where a number of ushers tried to help this old lady.

Conclusion: I will be having eargasm everytime in MSO concerts if MSO keeps playing at this level. I heard mutters of fellow audience after the performance and they all agreed with me that they just heard something rather special that night. 'Never heard of Swan Lake being done so dramatically', 'Love the conductor's conducting style', 'I thought that he's gonna take off' are just some example comments that I overheard. I'd love to see the conductor back in Melbourne: tackling a well-known symphony. Last but not least, tonight's concert is almost a full-house, extreme contrast with last Town Hall concert. MSO playing in this level is really wonderful, keep up the good work guys! Thanks for a truly memorable night.

My next concert: ACO playing Schoenberg's Transfigured Night.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 18 April 2009 - The Emperor

2009-04-18T21:31:00.004+10:00

Featuring:
- Mendelssohn Overture: The Fair Melusina
- Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 'Emperor'
- Stravinsky Concerto for chamber orchestra 'Dumbarton Oaks'
- Beethoven Symphony No. 8

Barry Douglas - Piano
Douglas Boyd - Conductor

Let's start with one good thing: I kept my promise and arrived (too) early for the concert. I had plenty of time to read through the program notes and seeing how much audience flocked in to the hall. With the program that MSO is offering for this concert, you would have expected to see a good number of audience, right? Beethoven's Emperor Concerto is a favourite classics - voted number 1 in ABC 100 classics concerto. Beethoven's 8th symphony - although not as famous as the odd-numbered symphony can attract some crowds too. Mendelssohn's and Stravinsky's pieces, as fine as they are, are probably just there to support the two Beethoven pieces. However, contrary to my expectation, the audience number is just disappointingly low. The balcony seats are virtually empty, and only 75-80% seats of the stalls are occupied. The circle seats fared much better, 90% of them are seated. So, why the low number of audience? Maybe people are just too sick with the 'Emperor'? Maybe because it's Saturday afternoon? Maybe because of Melbourne Comedy Festival? I have no idea.

To the concert: The Fair Melusina was executed sprightly with nice attack during the fast section of the piece. The opening movement and the end which are calmer were marked with excellent woodwinds playing from the orchestra. Good solid performance. Next piece is the 'meat' of the concert: the Emperor concerto. It started out promisingly, three nice chords with piano intersecting between them. Excellent opening. The pianist continued his fine playing, with the conductor provided excellent accompaniment. Then I realised something, the pianist, wonderful as he was, was not majestic enough in his playing. The big tunes in the first movement sounds a little bit underwhelmed, but it got better during the end of the movement. Personally, I got quite tired/bored with the big tune of the Emperor concerto after a while. The whole first movement is too long - "too many notes" - if I may say. Unlike most people who voted 'Emperor' as their favourite concerto, my favourite piano concerto of Beethoven is the subdued 4th piano concerto. Anyway, the cadenza was played much better, a fitting end to the end of first movement. The second movement is the highlight of the performance for me, now that was a gorgeous singing melody from the pianist. It almost hypnotised me, it was just dead gorgeous. The spell was broken during the transition to the Rondo, which was perfectly fine apart from a couple weird tempo choices in the middle. In the end, a satisfying performance, well worth listening especially the second movement. 3 curtain calls for the pianist, but no encores :(.

After the interval, Stravinsky's bouncy Dumbarton Oaks concerto bounced back my interest. Its cute, bouncy rhythm made me grinned - not unlike Prokofiev's. It started off imitating Bach's 3rd Brandenburg concerto jumping rhythm, but them it ventures out to do something else. The second movement was highlighted by some fine flute lines. The third movement was a quick one, ending with a glimmer of brilliance. Nice fine music. I have to thank my own ventures to Prokofiev music that have given my brain some 'training' to listen to this irresistible weird rhythmic music.

A straight, no non-sense playing of Beethoven's 8th symphony closed the concert. And yes, I never failed to grin throughout the performance. I loved every single bit of Beethoven's 8th symphony. It's compact, full of musical jokes and brilliant orchestration. I liked how the conductor emphasis the marching brass rhythm in the last movement. The horns are to be praised for their fine playing in the trio of the third movement. But the surprise was me finding out that the audience actually liked the performance as much as I do. Good surprise, because I have assumptions that people only like Beethoven's 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th and 9th symphonies. Oh yeah, I sure hope the other people did not notice my facial expression during the performance of this symphony. If I have a mirror, I'm sure I looked like a lunatic with never ending grins.

Next concert: Rachmaninov's ever popular Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini - next month.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 21 March

2009-03-23T00:37:00.002+11:00

Featuring:
- Bach St. John Passion

Timothy Robinson - Evangelist
Stephan Loges - Christ
Matthew Brook - Pilate/baritone
Rachelle Durkin - Soprano
Renee Martin - Mezzo-soprano
James Egglestone - Tenor
Thomanerchor Leipzig: Georg Christoph Biller - Thomaskantor
Oleg Caetani - Conductor

There's nothing more exciting than to come to a concert programming a masterpiece that you have not had a chance to listen before, and the concert ended up convincing you why the masterpiece deserves its reputation. I have never listened to Bach's long choral works - the longest cantata that I've listened to is less than 10 minutes long -. I don't really know what to expect from a Passion, apart from the knowledge that I'll be expecting plenty of Christian stories being told with music.

After the MSO last Saturday's concert, I am glad that I subscribed to this concert in the first place. It was a full house at Elisabeth Murdoch Hall in the new Melbourne Recital Centre. I arrived 1 minute before the performance started and since I got a seat in the middle of a row, I have to walk past 10 or so people in a very awkward manner and have to inconvenience all of them. The weather was quite warm that day, and I was sweating quite heavily when I was finally seated from a combination of fast-walking plus a little bit of panic to reach the concert hall on time. I swear this is my last time arriving at concert hall at most 5 minutes before the concert started.

While still sweating and speed-reading the programme notes, the choirs and soloists came out and the music started. The opening chorus immediately grabbed my attention for its high dramatic moments. Then I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that the story of being told in the passion is the last episode of Christ's life till his crucifixion. Being sent to a Christian school during my primary school, I was required to learn and memorise some of Christ's stories - although I'm not a Christian. Anyway, with some bittersweet memories of my youth, I can follow all the stories being told by a very engaging Evangelist. I cannot really comment on any details of the work as I'm not very familiar with it and therefore am not sure on how things should be done for the performance of a passion. Overall, I've found the soloists were very good, but the emotional impact that they could bring to the work could have been better. I love the choral parts the best, and I was in my high emotion in the last chorus when the text 'ich will dich preisen ewiglich (I would praise you for all eternity)!' was being sung. That last chorus itself affected me so much that my mind was in the 'wandering' mode thinking of Bach's musical genius.

My other comments on the performance: the orchestra was really trimmed up. Probably around 10 violins, 5 violas, 4 cellos, 2 basses, a pair of flutes, one each of oboe, cor anglais, bassoon, a small organ, lute and theorbo. Caetani gave a wonderful accompaniment to the choir and soloists, but the man of the night was David Berlin - the principal cello who played wonderful solos throughout the work. Calvin Bowman, the organist, was probably the busiest man of the night, providing bass lines throughout the performance. The hall's acoustic really helped the deep bass line were as clear as crystal compared to the sound that I normally listened to in Hamer Hall.

Summing up, this concert has officially converted me wanting to listen to Bach's sacred choral masterpieces. Popular opinion has regarded both St. Matthew's Passion and Mass in B minor to be superior to St. John's Passion. All that's left for me to do is to discover all of these wonderful music.

Next concert: 'The Emperor' - Beethoven's 5th piano concerto and his symphony that never failed to put me in a lighter mood - the 8th! - in one month's time.

Australian Chamber Orchestra concert 15 March 2009 - Inner Voices Tour

2009-03-15T23:27:00.002+11:00

Featuring:
- Andrew Ford Bright Shiners World Premiere
- Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 3
- Sibelius String Quartet in D minor, Op. 56 'Voces Intimae' arr. Pekka Kuusisto
- Bach Violin Concerto in E major
- Timo Alakotila Sketches from Folkscenes World Premiere

Pekka Kuusisto - Guest Director, Lead Violinist.

A very interesting concert, mixing the old and new music with Sibelius at the core of the program. Andrew Ford's music is a very interesting one, starting with the lead violinist played some theme only to be followed by the other strings one by one until the whole strings seemed to be playing by their own. They kept doing that until the second theme enters, where the strings behaved much more orderly and it ended with the same three notes as the opening of the third Brandenburg Concerto. The mysterious sound is now swept by Bach's masterful concerto which was gorgeously played, albeit a little bit subdued. Flowing melodious performance without any huge exaggeration. The mysterious adagio was played by the harmonium, and then the music launched itself again to the joyful, upbeat third movement. Nice satisfying performance.

The heart of the concert is the performance of Sibelius' String Quartet in D minor, arranged by Pekka Kuusisto. It started with the duet between the violin and the cello, followed by a highly exciting tremolo passages in the 2nd movement and to be slowed by the broad Adagio di molto, where the music sounds like Sibelius expressing his inner voices. Very moving and highly satisfying, especially during the last few bars of the movement. The quiet chords where Sibelius wrote 'Voces Intimae' has a strange effect. The energetic 4th and very fast 5th movements were all brilliant. A very good piece.

Bach's E major Violin Concerto followed after the interval, and again, it was played in a similar manner as the Brandenburg. The sound is not overwhelming, nothing over the top, the soloist did not sound remotely romantic, all to the good cause of the music. Pekka actually played the music rather freely, as can be seen with his gesture during the piece where sometimes he just turned his body around, lowered his violin when playing some passages and smile to other members of the orchestra.

The last piece was a Finn folk music, good upbeat outer movements with some aggressive playing from the cello and bass. The second movement was a slow wedding march providing a nice contrast to the outer movements.

As if I have not had enough Finnish music for the last 24 hours, we were given a Finn folk music by the orchestra as the encore. Very singable tune, I can still hum to the tune 15 minutes after the performance until my short term memory was wiped out.

Good number of audience, I guess it might have been 90% full in the Circle and Stall sections. Next concert: Bach's St. John Passion - next week!

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 14 March 2009 - Before the Icons

2009-03-15T21:56:00.005+11:00

Featuring:
- Einojuhani Rautavaara Before the Icons Australian Premiere
- Saint-Saens Violin Concerto No. 3 in B minor
- Richard Strauss Also sprach Zarathustra

Janine Jansen - Violin
Vladimir Ashkenazy - Conductor

This concert is a little bit out of ordinary for me because of several reasons: I attended the open rehearsal of this concert on Wednesday that week, got a free ticket to the Thursday concert on Wednesday night. I then went to the concert on Thursday night, only have to be leaving early because of my other commitments, and finally went back again to the concert on Saturday - almost LATE! - for the full concert.

Let's start with the rehearsal. It was really the first time for me seeing MSO rehearse in Hamer Hall. The sight of musicians wearing casual shirts is interesting, very much contrasting to their formal attire during concert. More interesting sight is the shirts that Ashkenazy and Janine Jansen wore during rehearsal. They both wore a plain white shirt, but with a black and white picture of a composer imprinted in front of the shirt. I wasn't really sure who was the composers, but my best guess for Ashkenazy's is either Richard Strauss or Mahler and I'm 90% sure that Jansen was wearing Saint-Saens shirt (another 10% goes to Verdi).

The rehearsal started with Saint-Saens' violin concerto. There wasn't as much interaction between the conductor, soloist and orchestra apart from three or four interruptions during the first movement of the concerto. A little bit nitpicking here and there from Ashkenazy and that's about it. The same story goes with the 2nd and 3rd movement. Jansen played beautifully during the rehearsal, and I like her performance during rehearsal better compared to her Thursday's performance. After that, they went on playing the whole concerto again and that's it.

To my disappointment, I couldn't witness the orchestra rehearsing Strauss' Zarathustra. Instead, Rautavaara's Before the Icons were rehearsed and this time, there were a lot more discussions between the orchestra and Ashkenazy. The music didn't hit home for me, but I grew to finally like it during Saturday's performance.

There was some drama going on with the audience sitting just in front of me on Thursday performance. There were this elderly couple which behaved in perfectly fine manner until the middle of the Rautavaara piece. The lady started passing a candy to her husband, and they both started unwrapping the candy and they both did it in how a person would do thing in concert hall: quietly. However, unwrapping candy quietly in concert hall is no easy feat, and it would actually took longer than the usual time to unwrap it. As most people are aware of, the unwrapping sound is rather distracting, and is actually one of the deadly sins in going to concert. Their attempt went on for one minute before I noticed one lady sitting in front of the couple started shooking her head. The usher then came and tried to ask them to stop. Unfortunately, it was in the middle of quiet passage, so the usher had to use some hand signs to convey the message which was not understood by the gentleman. The lady wasn't too happy being told by the usher, and muttered her disgust. The usher, thinking that her message was understood, left the couple, but would you believe it, the couple continued unwrapping the candy! It took a gentleman who sat in front of the couple to turn around and cast his disgusted look and expression to the lady before the lady started to realise what's wrong with her. With that, I lost 3 to 5 minutes trying to enjoy the piece, and subsequently I did not get the rest of the piece. A pure disaster, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one who felt this way.

Jumping straight to Saturday, I myself almost committed another sin in going to concert - being late! I was solving this hard Samurai Sudoku (I solved it before the concert, if you wonder :) ) before I realised that I was running out of time to go to concert. I arrived there seconds before the performance started and had to inconvenient quite a number of people because I was sitting in the middle row. Okay, now to the performance..

The Rautavaara piece was described as a 'Pictures at an Exhibition', a series of musical portray of one standing before these Orthodox icons: 'The Death of the Mother of God', 'Two Village Saints', 'Black Madonna of Blakernaya', 'The Baptism of Christ', 'The Holy Women at the Sepulchre', and 'Archangel Michael Fighting the Antichrist'. The equivalent of 'Promenade' in this piece is called the 'Prayer'. The piece started out with two big bangs, only to be really quiet for a long long time, until we reached the 'Two Village Saints' where the playful folk theme echoed in winds and strings. Then it continued again, but to be honest, I'm not sure where the music were until we reached the end of the piece. There were one melody that I loved in the piece that was played by the strings, and one nice chorale played by the brass during the end. If I were to sum up the piece, I would say it is an impressionistic piece with plenty of modern harmonies imbued - not unlike Takemitsu's pieces.

After being challenged by 'Before the Icons', we were sweetened by the romantic third violin concerto of Saint-Saens. Here, the music is much more accessible, the playing of the soloist was great and supported well by the orchestra. The gorgeous melody in the second movement was very much suited with Jansen's lovely tone. The duet between the clarinet and the soloist is quiet beautiful. The third movement showed some fast, close to furious, playing from the soloist and the joyful end of the movement brought much applause from the audience. Comparing the performance of the Thursday and Saturday, I've found that there were some not-so-perfect notes during some of the moments when the soloists needed to play ascending notes. Other than that, I loved her playing very much. She looks gorgeous in her dress (she wore the same dress on Thursday and Saturday), played elegantly with some knee flexing actions involved. She looked totally involved in the music, 'banging' her head during some of the orchestral tuttis and marching passages. Also, she gave a beautiful rendering of Bach's Sarabande from the 2nd Partita for solo violin as the encore for both performances. Lovely tone, although I prefer Bach to be played in more masculine tone.

On Thursday, I left early during the Zarathustra and felt a little bit underwhelmed by the famous opening. It simply wasn't grand enough. The section following the opening was gorgeous and I left during 'Of the Great Longing' when the organ played the quotation from the Magnificat - IIRC. The Saturday's performance was a great one, this time the opening was grand. The timpani stroke was as powerful as it can be, the brass was amazing and the organ in the end (whoa!). The rest of the movements were played very much straight forward, with credits must be given to the orchestra's front-desk strings for fine playing. Love the two gorgeous ladies from the viola section. One distracting thing during this performance is the sound of Ashkenazy's watch when he conducted the piece.

A very fine concert, with a chance to see two musical giants in the same concert. The concert was quite popular, around 90% of the seats were occupied. The next concert is actually today's ACO concert (embarrassment of the riches - too much fine music in a space of less than 24 hours!), I'll blog about it later.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 6 March 2009 - Resurrection

2009-03-08T22:24:00.002+11:00

Featuring:
- Lili Boulanger Psalm 129 for chorus and orchestra Australian Premiere
- Mahler Symphony No. 2 'Resurrection'

Penelope Mills - Soprano
Bernadette Cullen - Mezzo-soprano
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus: Jonathan Grieves-Smith - Chorus Master
Oleg Caetani - Conductor

First MSO concert in Hamer Hall this season, and it was a great one. It started with Lili Boulanger's settings of Psalm 129. The piece was great, and the orchestra played well. My minor complaint was the slight unclear French pronunciation of the choir. The irony of this piece is that, while on its own it can make a great impression on attention-paying audience, it is soon subdued by Mahler's symphony and couldn't have a greater effect.

Mahler's symphonies are always titanic, and I don't think any sensible directors will ever place his symphonies to start a concert. Just like Sviatoslav Richter's comment on Beethoven's Appassionata sonata: "It always belong to the end of a piano recital, since there cannot be anything grander, so that anything that comes after will only be diminished in effect by the boundless force of this music." However, the Resurrection symphony won't only diminish any music that comes after it (fortunately, there weren't any that night), but it also negated the effect of music that came before it, i.e. Boulinger's Psalm 129 settings. Clive O'Connell, The Age reviewer of this concert, did not even mention Boulinger's music in his review although it was the Australian Premiere of that music.

The good thing about the concert is, it was one of the best concert I've attended in MSO. Starting with the sudden outburst in strings, and the grim funeral theme (with emphasis in the first note of the theme) in cello and basses, the first movement transformed into something lighter in the second theme of the movement courtesy of fine playing from the winds section. Then the funeral march came back again, cymbals crashing to mark the climax of the movement in I don't know how many f's. The climax needs to be overwhelming and the loud dynamics from the orchestra helped to achieve that effect. It's probably in the same level of dynamics as the finale of Mahler 1 when I attended it around one year ago. The grimness of this movement cannot be denied when we reached the end of the first movement. The double basses are very fine throughout providing clear base line and credit to harp sections for their clear, precise playing.

The second movement brought back the nostalgic feeling with some troubled episode in between. It was played clean, and crisp: the viola section gave a wonderful reading of their part which I think is one of the most beautiful theme composed by Mahler.

The timpani stroke which opened the third movement cannot be any more clear as a wake up call, and the principal timpanist played it to great effect. Great playing, with the cry of despair moment might have actually scared off some people who have not accustomed with this symphony yet.

The Urlicht came tenderly, the mezzo soprano gave a wonderful reading of it. Credit also to the principal oboist giving a beautiful duet with the mezzo.

The cry of despair came back again to signal the beginning of the finale, and the resurrection theme was announced. The brass section was really wonderful that night: trombones, trumpets, horns sections played their hearts out. Caetani really paid attention to small details: The offstage brass achieved the desired effect, the little trills in the woodwinds are emphasised. The march of the dead was hair rising. The choir then came in, the duet of Soprano and Mezzo soprano was good, but could be more heart-melting, the end was overwhelming as it could be, but unfortunately THE ORGAN WAS NOT INVOLVED IN THE END!! To be honest, that is my main disappointment of the performance, apart from minor wrong note playing from the horns.

It also needs to be noticed that the woodwinds section lift their instruments when playing several passages, as with the horn section. There were 30 violins (16 first, 14 second), the largest I've seen so far, if I remember correctly. There was a poor violist who played by herself behind the other pairs because there was no more room in the stage to fit another violist. And what sound did 10 horns make in the end! The 85% full hall gave a rousing applause at the conclusion of the piece. It must have been around 10 minutes of applause for the orchestra in the end.

For me, I practically had goose bumps all over during the first and third movements. In the fifth movement, I can barely contain myself to not join the choir singing the Resurrection text and also not to sing out the main theme from the orchestra of which I know by heart. I left the concert emotionally drained. Such an effect this symphony has for its listeners, I am still moved every time (although I've listened to it for 30-40 times already). This concert serves as a reminder to me: Mahler is always best live. And also, "Wouldn't you just die without Mahler?"

Next concert: Ashkenazy (Yes, Vladimir Ashkenazy) in Strauss' epic Also Sprach Zarathustra + Janine Jansen playing Saint Saens' 3rd violin concerto next week.

Some interesting music I've recently discovered

2009-02-28T22:36:00.005+11:00

Prokofiev's 3rd Piano Concerto - AWESOME! It's so witty, it's so Prokofiev. The coda of the last movement is like a never ending ecstasy. The relentless strings against the piano - very exciting!

Schubert's D. 958 (Piano Sonata #19), D. 959 (Piano Sonata #20), and D. 944 (Symphony No. 9). Schubert is moving up fast in my playlist. He wrote music with such purity and brilliance, I cannot fail to stand in awe when listening to his music. The slow movements of both D. 958 and D. 959 can bring me down anytime, while the slow movement of D. 944 stuck in my head for hours when I first time listened to it. I am never and will never be tired when listening to his masterpieces. They're just timeless.

Berlioz's Harold in Italy - after several listening, I begin to like this piece very much. It's like Symphony Fantastique, but just a tad less fantastic. It's still great anyway.

Mahler's 9th symphony - a tough one to crack, just like the rest of Mahler. But as usual, the reward of being persistent listening to it is very high! I can't say I understand the symphony perfectly - who ever does? - but if you're not carried away in the climax of the finale where basically it seems like Mahler himself is finally saying his last goodbye to the world in a very neurotic fashion, something is seriously wrong with you.

Bach's Goldberg Variations - what a piece! I bought Pinnock's recording of it on the harpsichord. Wonderful recording and playing. I've also listened to Gould's 81 recording in Youtube. Vastly different interpretation and sound (piano vs. harpsichord), but they're both very enjoyable. The minor key variations are something special, the canons are amazing. And what an effect that Aria has when it is played again in the end! It's like telling the listener, you have arrived at the end of the journey, sit back and relax, reminisce about the journeys you just took while not forgetting where you start your journey from. Glorious piece!

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 27 February 2009 - Figaro, Franckly

2009-02-28T21:56:00.004+11:00

Featuring:
- Mozart The Marriage of Figaro: Overture
- Villa-Lobos Concerto for guitar and small orchestra
- Franck Symphony in D minor

Edoardo Catemario - Guitar
Oleg Caetani - Conductor

New year, new season concert. Before this opening concert, MSO played 4 free concerts in Sidney Myer Music Bowl. They're all marvelous, the highlight for me is the playing of Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Concerto, Gershwin Piano Concerto, Schubert's 9th Symphony, Rodrigo's Concerto de Aranjuez, and the most-remarkable concert of Beethoven's 9th symphony where almost all of the audience gave a standing ovation to.

One thing that is always to be grateful to when attending the Town Hall concert is the free organ recital by Calvin Bowman. It's more to be appreciated this season, because another free pre-concert program: the music talk is not going to exist this season. On the organ recital program, we have Bach's Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, BWV 542. The Fantasia part is a little bit too fantasia to my taste and also I blame my late arrival to the concert hall to not be able to listen to the fantasia from the start. The fugue, however, is wonderful, as expected from the master of Fugue himself. The next program is Wesley's An old English Meldoy arranged by A.E. Floyd. It's a short piece, with folk music being the main tune of the piece. Quite enjoyable. The piece that made the best impression of the night is the 2 movements of Widor's Symphony No. 5. Dr. Bowman played the Adagio and Toccata from the symphony.

On to the concert. It was good, but not great concert. It doesn't help that the program is too short. Mozart's Overture to the Marriage of Figaro always entertains, but I was quite disappointed with the guitar concerto by Villa-Lobos. While it contains some interesting passages, the second movement doesn't work too well although the soloist's playing of the cadenza is great. The finale is hardly exciting, I was quite bored with it to be honest. However, the encore given by the soloist is amazing. Unfortunately, I did not catch what piece is that and who composed it when the soloist mentioned it.

Franck's symphony in D minor turns out to be the surprise of the night, it was actually quite interesting. The Leitmotif is present throughout the symphony and I was impressed by the creativity in the 2nd movement. The main theme of the finale is a little bit too pretty and popular-sounding, but when the full brass section blasted it towards the end, you cannot help but overwhelmed to the sound. Great performance from MSO. Mascagni's Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana is the encore by the orchestra for the night.

Next week's concert: Mahler's 2nd symphony. Enough said. Can't wait for it!

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 28 November 2008 - The Firebird

2008-12-03T21:32:00.004+11:00

Featuring:
- Beethoven Leonore Overture No. 2
- Debussy La mer
- Stravinsky The Firebird - complete ballet music

Oleg Caetani - Conductor

Last concert of the season for me - and it was wonderful!

For that night Town Hall series, Calvin Bowman played Bach's Kyrie, Gott heiliger Geist, BWV 671 and the organ rendition of the famous cantata Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme BWV 645, a rather short piece by John Stanley Suite in D, the fairy garden movement from Ravel's Ma mere L'oye and two pieces by Percy Whitlock Preambule and Exultemus.

The second Leonore overture is probably always been overshadowed by its more dramatic brother third overture and played much more infrequently. It's still one heck of a fine piece of music and MSO gave a wonderful reading of it. Caetani's elegant conducting was wonderful as usual. All sections of the orchestra were very fine but the performance was let down a little bit by a slightly inaccurate playing of the offstage brass. I was hugely disappointed by lukewarm applause by the audience - not even a curtain call for Caetani after such wonderful performance. Was it because this overture is not a piece that most audience is familiar with?

None of it matters since the next piece is - IMHO - Debussy's finest orchestral music La mer. It took me quite a while to like this piece when I first started listening to it. Until one day, I was lying on my bed while listening to it and the whole thing just clicked - the journey to midday from sunrise in the first movement, the playful waves in the second movement, and the stormy finale of the finale. In fact, the make or break of a La mer performance is whether the performance is able to make me feel and picture the waves come crashing down in the finale. That night's performance succeeded in making me feel that way but I have just slight reservations with the playing of the second movement. All in all, it was a very good performance. The icing on the cake is the sight of the orchestra in full force - I always love to see that.

The last piece of the night was Stravinsky's Firebird. When I first listened to it, I wasn't really impressed with the very long quiet opening, and the music sounded quite boring at times. I still have that kind of feeling when listening to it live in the performance, but this time, the marvelous ending won me over. The ending is uplifting as it can possibly be and the audience seemed to be very pleased with it. Huge applause followed and we were given an encore of another Stravinsky's piece Fireworks, a short piece showcasing orchestral virtuosity.

In summary, a very good night out and a memorable concert to end this season's concert-going experience for me.

Australian Chamber Orchestra concert 10 November 2008 - Euphoric Tour

2008-11-16T23:41:00.003+11:00

Featuring:
- Prokofiev - Symphony No. 1 in D major, 'Classical'
- Brahms - Double Concerto for violin and cello
- Beethoven - Symphony No. 8 in F major

My first ACO concert. My first time purchasing student ticket - $18.00 (very cheap!). Got a seat high up in the balcony. This will be the last time I sat at the balcony in Hamer Hall, I just couldn't stand looking down at a very sharp angle for a long long time. I was quite lucky that I still able to see the lead violinist - if I were to be seated a couple more seats up, seeing the soloists would be impossible.

Prokofiev's classical symphony is a very fine music - 'witty' is the adjective that I use to describe this symphony. All movements were very much enjoyable with the last two movements pleased me the most. Surely it's time to check out Prokofiev's other symphonies?

Brahms Double Concerto was a little bit disappointing. Did not really enjoy the performance and I even thought the musical lines were muddy at times. Not even the lovely theme of the Andante engaged me in the performance. The finale fared much better, but as a whole, the performance did not satisfy me as much as the legendary Rostropovich, Oistrakh and Szell recording on EMI. We were given a small piece as an encore, I couldn't really recall what the piece was, but it was a duet between violin and cello, both of them playing pizzicato throughout.

Beethoven 8 was the highlight of the night. Although it's not as famous as the big Beethoven symphonies (think of the Third (Eroica), Fifth, Sixth (Pastorale), Seventh and Ninth), this is the only symphony of Beethoven that never failed to made me grin from the beginning till the end. The whole symphony is just pure fun! Listen to the big opening movement, the playful scherzo of the second movement, the minuet and the fantastic trio of the third movement and the musical jokes in the final movement! The performance was very fine throughout - the fast tempo taken definitely helped as well. The playing of the timpanist was really fine in the final passages of the last movement and it was very exciting to watch him hitting the kettledrums!

After Beethoven 8, Richard Tognetti gave a small 'speech' about the future closure of ANAM at the end of this year. At the end of his speech, he suddenly announced that students from ANAM will join the ACO to give the audience two encores: Tchaikovsky's Waltz of Flower from the Nutcracker and Sibelius' 'Scene with Cranes' suite from the tone poem from Kuolema.

I am one out of the many people who is very disappointed with the federal government decision to stop funding Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM), effectively closing it down at the end of this year. I've attended several concerts of ANAM students in South Melbourne Town Hall and have enjoyed immensely some of the programs offered. Particularly fond in my memory are the gorgeous performance of Mozart's Wind Quintet K. 452 and Sonata for Two Pianos K. 448. Also, a very memorable night of Schubert's concert by Emmanuel Ax who was invited to give masterclass in the academy. I urge everyone to sign the online petition to stop government from closing the academy which can be found in ANAM website.

Ensemble Liaison & Friends - Concert 4: Lullaby & Doina

2008-11-16T23:10:00.006+11:00

4 November 2008

Featuring:
- Beethoven - Cello Sonata No. 4 in C major, Op. 102 No. 1
- Jean Franciax - Theme and Variations for Clarinet and Piano
- Osvaldo Golijov - Lullaby and Doina for Flute, Clarinet and Strings
- Schubert - Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667 "The Trout"

Ensemble Liaison:
- Svetlana Bogosavljevic - Cello
- David Griffiths - Clarinet
- Timothy Young - Piano
Friends:
- Wilma Smith - Violin
- Katie Chilmaid - Violin
- Simon Oswell - Viola
- Alex Henery - Double Bass
- Mardi McSullea - Flute

There's reason for late reviews: these past few weeks had been quite hectic. Assignments, exams, and old/new personal problems had taken their tolls on me and I just did not have time to do blogging. I'll try my best to recall the experience of this concert.

I have never listened to any of the pieces from that night's concert before.

Short summary:
Wasn't really impressed with Beethoven's Cello Sonata. Sure, there were some brilliant passages, but on a whole, it wasn't quite memorable. Also, the cellist sounded a little bit overwhelmed by the pianist in this performance.

The Franciax's piece was described by the clarinetist as a 'circus music' and he couldn't describe it better. A very challenging piece for clarinetist to perform - plenty of notes in fast tempo portraying fun and bouncy atmosphere of a circus act is what came into my mind when listening to it.

Golijov's piece was another interesting one. It was apparently used in the 2000 movie The Man Who Cried starring Johnny Depp and Cate Blanchett. The music was quite haunting and started out very somber. In the middle of the piece, after the double bass player put down his bow and took a deep breath, the music picked up its tempo and the double bass player launched himself to a prolonged, very exciting to watch, fast pizzicato passages. This performance was definitely the highlights of the night for me.

I have to pity myself for not being entirely impressed with Schubert's Trout Quintet. I am not sure what happened but I lost my concentration in the middle of the first movement. Only the folksy tune in the last movement restored my interest of this music. This is the piece that I have to listen again to get why it is so popular.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 17 October 2008 - Mozart's Requiem

2008-10-18T12:31:00.004+11:00

Featuring:
- Mozart Symphony No. 41 'Jupiter'
- Mozart Requiem

Jacqueline Porter - Soprano
Sally-Anne Russell - Mezzo-soprano
James Egglestone - Tenor
Richard Alexander - Bass
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus: Jonathan Grieves-Smith - Chorus Master
Benjamin Northey - Conductor

As usual with Town Hall concert, there is an organ recital performed by Calvin Bowman. For this recital, he played Scarlatti Sonata in G; Mozart's subdued Adagio K. 356 showing that organ can be played in a tamely manner; Suites from Henry V by Walton (arr. Robert Gower/Henry Ley) which is rather nice with the outer marching movements sandwiching the more restraint middle movements. The third movement Touch her soft lips and part probably is my favourite moment in the recital. The final piece is a composition by Bowman himself Vexilla Regis which structurally similar to Walton's piece, with the theme in the first movement coming back in the last movement (if I remember correctly).

So, now on to the one of this year's most awaited concert. The hall is fully packed but not all the seats were occupied, contrary to the 'Sold Out' claim in MSO website. The concert started out with the energetic first movement of the Jupiter. Some nice playing in the brass as well, bringing out musical lines that I never really paid attention to before. I won't critique anything on this composition of Mozart - this symphony is just perfect and I always think that this is the crown achievement of all Mozart's symphonies. The second movement was full of nostalgia, although the movement could be carried out a little bit slower to bring out all the musical ideas there. The third movement was very fine, but I was anticipating for the finale the whole time in the performance. The finale of this symphony is my absolute favourite Mozart symphony movement. That five-voices fugue in the end of this movement is a very good representative of Mozart's composition power. The performance itself was very fine. The tempo was brisk, showcasing the virtuosity of the orchestra. I almost lost my self control and joined the conductor in conducting the orchestra I should say :). The audience only called for two curtain calls, which is somewhat disappointing after a very fine performance, but they might be saving their applause for the next giant, the Requiem, K. 626

A more than 100-members of MSO chorus joined the orchestra to perform the Requiem. An interesting note is that there is no clear separation in the seating of the four voices of the chorus. The seating was mixed with men seating flanked by two women. I wondered what was the reason for this. On the performance itself, the Introit was good and the soprano soared in 'Te Decet'. The chorus joined back soon after and set the tone for the next section - the 'Kyrie'. The 'Kyrie' was taken quite fast, but not too much. I preferred this approach very much compared to slower tempo that some conductors took. One small minor complaint about the chorus: the tenor voices seemed to be very weak compared to the other. I finally found out why when I looked through the program notes after the performance: the tenor has only half the number of the bass. Also, after 'Kyrie', I noticed that there is no organ accompaniment for this performance, which is a little bit disappointing. The 'Dies Irae' was scary as usual, all four of the soloists delivered magnificent performance in the 'Tuba Mirum' sequence. Credit also to the trombone soloist for fine accompaniment. 'Rex Tremendae' opened up with great cries from the chorus but soon subdued in the contrasting 'Salva Me'. The 'Recordare' again featured fine performances from all of the soloists. 'Confutatis' was furious, but lacking in tenor voices, it lost some power of the duet of tenor and bass voices in the opening of this movement. The female voices were angelic in the contrasting 'voca me cum benedictis'. 'Lacrimosa' was probably the pick of the night, although the conductor did not leave enough time for me to take a moment of reflection on it by starting 'Domine Jesu' a bit sooner. The rest of the movements were again very fine. And in the end, the Kyrie fugue but now set with different texts overwhelmed me. Loud applause followed.

To sum up, a very memorable night featuring plenty of fine performances. The conductor obviously has great talent and look forward to seeing him conduct MSO again.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 4 October 2008 - Handel's Water Music

2008-10-15T18:32:00.003+11:00

Featuring:
- Solomon: The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba
- Julius Caesar: 'Va tacito e nascosto' and 'Dall'ondosa periglio...Aure, deh, per pieta'
- Alcina: Suite
- Rodelinda: 'Vivi, tiranno'
- Water Music (all suites)

All music by Handel.

Bernard Labadie - Conductor
David Hansen - Counter-Tenor

This is an overdue review of this concert. I have been very busy for the whole past month, doing research, writing paper to a conference, and doing assignments and therefore, my experience on this concert has been faded somewhat.

There are three things that I remembered fondly about this concert: First, the sound of MSO, second: the Theorbo; and finally, the voice of the counter-tenor David Hansen. MSO's sound was tweaked somewhat for this performance; it resembled very much the sound of a period-instruments chamber orchestra. The Theorbo is a very unique instrument - rather large in size, but produced very soft sound. I'll discuss the counter-tenor a little bit later.

The concert started with the bouncy The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba. The performance while good, was not that exciting either. The pair of oboes seemed to struggle somewhat. Next up is two arias from Julius Caesar. While I was left untouched by both arias, counter-tenor David Hansen delivered the surprise of the night for me. I was startled when he started singing, and never expected that a male can produce that kind of voice. His voice while refined, did not have enough volume to carry through for the entire hall, I believed. He did much better in the Rodelinda aria, showcasing his techniques and impressing the audiences with fiendishly difficult passages.

The Alcina suite was performed in between the performances of arias of Julius Caesar and Rodelinda. This was the best performance of the concert that night. The performance of Water Music, which is supposed to be the highlight of the night, ended up being average. The seemingly endless number of movements in all suites of Water Music ended up just a little bit too much for all audience to take (there are in total 17 movements - 8 for Suite 1; 4 for Suite 3, 5 for Suite 2 performed in that order). I noticed an old lady sitting beside me fell asleep somewhere in the middle of first suite. Fortunately, she woke up at the correct moment, in the Hornpipe movement of the second suite. That movement and also the Bourree from the same suites are probably the best performances of the entire suite.

Next concert: this Friday, Mozart's Requiem and Jupiter Symphony. Can't wait.

Ensemble Liaison & Friends - Concert 3: Brahms & Messiaen

2008-09-18T00:56:00.005+10:00

Featuring:
- Brahms - Clarinet Trio in A minor, Op. 114
- Messiaen - Quartet for the End of Time

Ensemble Liaison:
- Svetlana Bogosavljevic - Cello
- David Griffiths - Clarinet
- Timothy Young - Piano
Friend:
- Wilma Smith - Violin

I just attended this concert on a whim after deciding that I did not want to attend it two hours before the concert because of my cough and unfinished assignment. Just one hour prior to the concert, I finished my assignment and decided to go to the concert. 10 dollar is the ticket price. The attraction of the concert for me is the Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time of which I will attend again in the November play by MSO chamber players. Also, I haven't heard any of these two works before. So, I was really thrilled to find two gems.

I have often read that Brahms' late chamber music works are best described as autumnal. Listening to this Clarinet Trio I can clearly see why. Every time I closed my eyes to be more intimate to the music, the only thing that I can picture of is the a line of trees with yellow leaves falling down from them. Autumnal is really the best way to describe this Clarinet Trio. All four movements are gorgeous, but the heart of the piece for me is the lyrical second movement. Near the end of this movement, there was this passage I found so sublime where the theme is played by the piano while the cello and clarinet provided a wonderful accompaniment - tears rolled down my cheek. The end of the final movement was quite virtuosic as well rounding up a very nice piece. I can't wait to discover Brahms' more famous Clarinet Quintet after this.

While Brahms' piece charmed with its melancholy and melodic lines, Messian's piece affected the listener with its strong depiction of the end of time. There are 8 movements in the piece, some movements are very short, while some movements are very very long due to its 'slowness'. The movement that made the most impression are the third movement for solo clarinet, played wonderfully by the clarinetist. The fifth movement for cello accompanied by piano and the sixth movement where all of the instruments played together playing the 'Dance of fury' and the last movement which is very similar to the fifth movement for violin accompanied by piano. Bird calls are plenty in the piece, most notably in the mysterious first movement and also in the second movement.

I am very impressed with the quality of the musicians in this group. They are all at very high standard. What actually impressed most in the experience of attending this concert is the intimacy between instruments playing in chamber music. The dialogue between instruments are very intimate and very interesting. Tonight's experience is very new to me and I wouldn't mind paying another 10 dollar for another concert like this.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 29 August 2008 - Three Great Romantics

2008-08-30T01:33:00.004+10:00

Featuring:
- Carl Maria von Weber - Oberon: Overture
- Robert Schumann - Piano Concerto
- Johannes Brahms - Serenade No. 1

Oleg Caetani - Conductor
John Chen - Piano
Calvin Bowman - Organ

For his organ recital, Calvin Bowman started off by presenting a rather lengthy Bach's Prelude and Fugue in E flat major, BWV 552. Schumann's pieces from Canonic studies for pedal piano, Op. 56 was next, I love the second piece as it has a very childlike tune. Brahms' Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen was very nice as well. And a lively piece by C.S. Lang Tuba Tune rounded up the performance.

The decision to either subscribe to the entire Town Hall series or not, I recalled, was one of the toughest decision for me to make last year because of this concert. On one hand, I wanted to save money by not attending to this concert because MSO has already programmed very similar program last season differing only in the Brahms' work which I have not listened to before. On the other hand, if I did not attend this concert, then I can't have the Town Hall subscription and assigned a fixed seating for all the other 3 concerts that I want to go. In the end, I found out that I only need to pay $12 extra for this concert if I chose to subscribe to the whole series compare to purchasing individual tickets for the other 3 concerts separately. The promise of listening to Brahms' serenade helped me in justifying the extra $12 that I need to pay for this concert.

The concert itself did not disappoint, if Brahms is your motivation to go to this concert. However, if your motivation is Schumann's Piano Concerto, then I think you might feel a little bit disappointed. I'll elaborate this later. The concert program started with Oberon: overture which I already loved. The orchestra executed it brilliantly and the audience loved it. Credit also to Caetani for his sudden tempo acceleration after the slow introduction, I liked it very much. Next up is the disappointment of the concert for me. The Schumann Piano Concerto started good, but then as with the other pianist who played this same concerto last season, John Chen wasn't able to bring out the most of the concerto. The middle section of the concerto was, to be honest, quite bland. It did not help the performance when the pianist made a small number of mistakes as well. The cadenza which is the make or break of Schumann Piano Concerto for me, was fortunately quite good although Richter's reading of it is never surpassed. The performance of the second movement was okay to border-not-so-good. Fortunately, the finale was very good. However, as a whole, the performance is not so good. By the way I have some rant on audience's concert etiquettes today: the audience sitting at my back and around me weren't being helpful for me in enjoying the performance. There were chair creaks through out; the couple sitting behind me did some annoying things: unwrapping a candy, flipping through the concert program in the middle of the concert and scratching their legs loudly. And for the first time in my concert-going experience, I saw a guy passing a glass of wine to his friend who is two rows in front of him in the middle of the first movement of piano concerto. Although Australia is a laid back country, this behaviour is just unacceptable.

Moving on to Brahms' serenade: this is the gem of the night. A work of 6 movements, it started with a very uplifting first movement. The second and fifth movements are two nice scherzos. The middle movements are a beautiful Adagio although it did not start very convincingly and a charming Minuet. Haydn-like last movement was the first thing that popped up in my mind after listening to the first few bars of the finale. The whole serenade was marvelous. I very much enjoyed the whole piece. Hungarian Dance No. 1 was the encore of the night.

The number of the audience was quite disappointing, this is probably the emptiest Town Hall concert that I've ever attended. Next Town Hall concert should hopefully filled up with more people because it has two masterpieces: Mozart's Jupiter symphony and Requiem.

Sydney Symphony mimed MSO in opening ceremony Sydney 2000 Olympics

2008-08-25T03:02:00.005+10:00

SSO, its musicians and Australia will be embarrassed by this. I don't really have the problem with the miming because the sound of an orchestra won't come up perfectly if the musicians were to play in an open air stadium with bad acoustics and lots of background noises. The problem with it is SSO mimed to the recording by its arch-rival MSO. They could've and should've mimed to its own recording. I don't understand the decision of the Olympic Committee to use MSO recording and asked SSO to mime to it. It's demeaning to the musicians of SSO (because they're not actually playing the music) and MSO (because they're not acknowledged!).

Oh well, what's done is done.

Music that are being discovered (by me of course :) )

2008-08-07T01:24:00.002+10:00

Bach: Sonata and Partita for Violin. Bought the Goldberg the other day, have yet to listen to it.
Beethoven: Piano Sonata #5 and hopefully #6 and #7. Still need to listen to Diabelli Variations.
Mozart: Gran Partita (Serenade for 13 winds), Bassoon concerto, Symphonies written before the 'Haffner'.
Haydn: The symphonies (have listened to 100-104, working my way backwards)
Saint Saens: Have listened to all of his piano concertos, right now trying a couple of his tone poems as well as going to listen to his third violin concerto.
Dvorak: Symphony No. 6 (it has a very uplifting Scherzo in forms of a furiant).
Mahler: Symphony No. 9.
Chopin: Scherzos and Fantaisie in e minor
Lalo: Symphonie Espagnole.
Schubert: Piano Sonata #20, D. 959
Mendelssohn: Some piano works.
Schumann: The symphonies (finished with his symphonies) now onto the piano works.
Berg: Violin Concerto (Still didn't get it! But when I listened to it the last time, I can enjoy a lot more of the piece.)
Tchaikovsky: Orchestral Suite #3, relistening to Manfred symphony and will listen to his Concert Fantasy soon.
Sibelius: Tone poems, Symphony No. 5
Brahms: I should start listening to his op. 117, 118, and 119.
Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 1, and (relistening to) The Bells. (Sorry have neglected Rach for these few months :( ).
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 4.
Debussy: Images for Orchestra.
Ravel: Ma Mere Loye (relistening) and Tzigane.
Nielsen: Symphony No. 5.
Verdi: 4 sacred pieces.
Grieg: Full Peer Gynt play and Sigurd Jorsalfar.
Bernstein: Serenade (should listen to it..)
Gershwin: Piano Concerto in F

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 2 August 2008 - Passionate Panorama

2008-08-03T19:16:00.003+10:00

Featuring:
- Delius Brigg Fair - An English Rhapsody
- Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto
- Brahms Symphony No. 1

James Ehnes - Violin
Christopher Seaman - Conductor

This is undoubtedly the concert that I've been excitedly waiting the most and the first concert that I decided to really go for when the subscription offer arrived at my mailbox. Tchaikovsky's violin concerto is my favourite violin concerto per se and my very first introduction to classical music. I still remembered waking up every morning to listen to the finale of this piece. Brahms' first symphony is a very special symphony that means a lot to me. I don't play this symphony very often in my computer since I always reserved it for a special occasion. I only play this symphony when I am doubting my own ability, when I think I've reached my limit in doing something or just pure self-doubts. By listening to this symphony, I put myself into Brahms' shoes when he wrote this symphony. He wanted to write something that is deemed worthy of comparison to Beethoven's ninth. He struggled a lot during the writing of the symphony and reportedly took 15 years before completing it. Talk about struggle! With this symphony completed, he overcame his own self doubt, he stretched his own limit as a composer and overcame his own fear as a human to allow his work to be compared to Beethoven's masterpiece. This alone is enough to give me motivation and I would always be lifted up, be able to face my problems straight in the face and most importantly I would start believe again in myself.

Now to the concert. The Delius piece is an impressionist piece which doesn't make a very big impression to me. It's nice and all, but in the end it's not satisfying. The orchestra played well and there are some interesting parts in this folk-song inspired rhapsody. As other Delius piece that I've listened before - it's a pleasant piece but quite forgettable, more so in this concert because the two works that followed are warhorses of classical music.

Next was the Tchaikovsky's violin concerto. The first thing that I noticed when the soloist, James Ehnes, played the very first few notes was that his playing is very gentle and sweet if compared to the Vadim Repin's recording with Gergiev. But boy he can play! I can certainly see why he is touted as one of the leading violinists now. The scary double stops and those technical challenges were nothing to him. His playing of the cadenza of the first movement showed this. The phrasing was well done the accelerando was wonderful and those triplets at the end of the cadenza was just perfect. The orchestra accompanied him very well throughout. Huge applause from the audience after the end of the first movement.

The second movement was poignant, restraint with the soloist accompanied very well by the woodwinds. In the finale, the soloist calmly removed some of the broken bow hair from his bow when he's not playing. I wondered how he could stay so calm and took his time to remove the bow hair. When the coda entered, the orchestra and the soloist puts their feet down the pedal and concluded the coda in such fast tempo. Huge applause from the audience and we were treated with the Preludio of Bach's third partita as an encore. I was quite lucky to get to talk to him in the foyer in the interval and got his autograph. He was very kind and I asked him if he's going to come again to Melbourne next year. He said he's not scheduled to come next year, but maybe the year after.

The last piece of the concert is the Brahms. The opening movement is taken at a faster tempo than those recordings of whom I am familiar with. With this taken, some of the majestic and struggle feeling of the opening was lost. None of this matters since the performance was so fine throughout. The violin solo in the second movement was lovely and the finale was so fine and hair-raising I wish it never ended. Loud applause followed after the final chord of the symphony.

To conclude: a very memorable night, probably one of the best concerts that I've attended to. The concert hall was almost full, I'd say filled at 97-98% capacity. Hope every MSO concert can be as brilliant as this concert.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 19 July 2008 - Toward the Light

2008-07-20T00:55:00.003+10:00

Featuring:
- Richard Strauss Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks
- Saint-Saens Piano Concerto No. 2
- Carl Nielsen Symphony No. 5

Simon Trpceski - Piano
Thomas Dausgaard - Conductor

I'll be frank and just admit I subscribe to this concert because of Saint-Saens piano concerto. I wasn't familiar with the 2 other pieces when I made my decision to subscribe to this concert. It's a bit of gamble since I had bad experience with Richard Strauss music played by MSO. The last season concert of his 'Sinfonia Domestica' bored me - one of the concert that I just wished it ended as fast as it could. With Nielsen, I read someone saying in Amazon classical music board that he 'spoke as much as Mahler did with his symphonies but in half the time'. In other thread of the same forum when posters were asked to vote for the best symphony ever written, there are surprisingly a number of votes for his fifth symphony despite strong (and popular) competitors from say Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Bruckner, Brahms, Mahler, Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn and Dvorak symphonies. I'm curious to see what the fuss is all about.

To prepare myself for the concert, I listened to Till Eulenspiegel and Nielsen's fifth symphony 2 days before the concert. I actually fell in love with Till in the first listening! A character of quick wits and plenty of tricks, he was portrayed excellently by Strauss - the opening horn solo depicting Till is just delicious. The music is also delightful with plenty of tongue-in-cheek passages throughout. I especially love the market scene where you can just listen to the havoc of the market from the music. And how about the whistling tune that is played after Till fooled the scholars? Fantastic. This piece and Also Sprach Zarathustra - which I spend one full evening on listening and listening to it again - now made me look at Strauss' music in a more positive way.

Nielsen's fifth symphony is a very modern symphony. One just needs to listen to the opening movement and will be taken aback on how modern it sounds. Despite being modern, it never reached to the atonality of Schoenberg. The symphony projects the impression of victory through struggle. It has a number of powerful moment and the best known moment in the whole symphony is when the snare drum 'fights' against the rest of the orchestra in the second part of the first movement. I was not entirely convinced with the second movement when I first heard it, but second listening should give me a better insight.

Now to the concert. The orchestra played Till very well. Individual solos were wonderful. However, in the end I felt the performance lacked in drama compared to the performance of Furtwangler or Karajan. Till's death scene may serve as an example to this. It wasn't as dramatic as it could be. In a sense it's too bad since the scene where Till was captured and whistling desperately was very good portrayed.
Despite all of this, it's still a very good performance.

You won't believe how the Saint-Saens piano concerto was played. Such virtuosity, showmanship and clarity playing. Simon Trpceski is one of the pianist to keep your eye on the next time he gives the concert. He was thoroughly impressive in the concerto, and very much comparable to Stephan Hough's performance of the fifth piano concerto with MSO last season. The performance started off with a bang, the long piano line was given such power that might surprise unprepared listeners. The technically difficult long cadenzas were nothing for the pianist, he played it off easily and such clarity in the playing. The playing was never muffled even in the stormiest passages. The orchestra accompanied wonderfully throughout. After the first movement, the pianist - would you believe it! - took some time to adjust his tie bow. He then proceeded and gave a most exciting Scherzo. In some points of the performance, he even moved his body as if he was dancing to the tune. This scherzo remained a crowd pleasing movement, several of the audience clapped after this movement. I don't blame them, the playing was just delicious. The finale started off in a similar fashion with the first movement - with lightning speed attack to the stormy opening. My heart started racing from the beginning of the second movement and it didn't stop until the last note of the finale. That showed how intense and exciting Simon Trpceski playing was. He gave two encores, the first one was very poetic - I regret not listening closely to him when he mentioned it before he played. The second encore was a composition by his fellow Macedonian composer. Both pieces were wonderful.

Nielsen's fifth symphony was next. A very good or rather, excellent first movement. The battle scene between the snare drum against the rest of the orchestra was so powerful and when the 'noble' theme came out victorious, I was emotionally overwhelmed. I again have a little bit of problem understanding the second movement, although the fugues (there are two fugues in the second movement) were now a bit clearer to me. The conductor is to be applauded for his energetic conducting and the powerful sound he extracted out from the orchestra.

Last note that I want to make about the concert is the number of attendance. Poor MSO, this concert was the less-attended concert that I've been to so far this season. Almost half the stall seats were empty! The circle seats were much better, it was 75% full. The balcony fared the worst, from a quick glance, I can tell that 80% of the seats were empty. This situation really saddens me and I can only think of one reason on the low number of attendance: this is the third performance out of 3 of the program.

Next concert: my highlight of this MSO season: Tchaikovsky's violin concerto and Brahms' first symphony on 2 August. Two of my favourite works. Can't wait till the day comes!

Mahler's 9th Symphony - A first listening

2008-06-30T22:57:00.002+10:00

I finally managed to pick myself up and have the courage to listen to this critic-branded 'earth-shattering' symphony. It wasn't earth-shattering for me at the moment, a problem that I always have with Mahler's music. For the recording, I picked to listen to Karajan's famous 1982-live recordings with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

Verdict:
The first movement was fantastic up until around the half-way mark, where the climax of the orchestra was really frightening. I had goosebumps all over me during this period and I'm sure everybody would too. After that, I expected more development but only to be disappointed with the music turning calm and calmer till the end of the movement. The very end of this movement has a very unique note, that for some unexplainable reason, sticks to me. Listen to it yourself and you'll see what I am talking about.

The second movement started out as a dance, but then it's not so dance like anymore. It kinda reminded me of the Scherzo of his 2nd symphony.

The third movement was the one that impressed me the best - it's very much like an orchestra showpiece. But the music itself sounded sarcastic from the very first note till the last note. I guess that's what it intended to sound like as Mahler wrote this movement as 'Rondo Burleske'.

The last movement moved me, close to tears, but right now the top slow movement of Mahler for me is still the slow movement of his sixth symphony. It is widely recognised as the acceptance of death, parting to this world. Perhaps, being a young man, death is something that I haven't thought much yet. I have the same problems with another movement of Mahler that supposedly meaning 'farewell to the earth' - the last movement of Das Lied von Der Erde. I can understand it musically, I gain something out of the movement, but I still cannot view this movement as how it is supposed to represent. Maybe this is just the naive side of me that have not had the slightest idea yet how to accept fate that is coming to you.

Conclusion: nothing to conclude but to listen to it again! I have Bernstein's, Abbado's and Walter's recording of this symphony and it should be interesting to compare the performance of each recordings. Hopefully one of them can help me understand the last movement better, so that I'll gain more out of it than what I gained of it at the moment.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 29 June 2008 - Ravel's Bolero

2008-06-29T00:37:00.003+10:00

Featuring:
- Berlioz Le Corsaire Overture
- Mozart Piano Concerto No. 20
- Schoenberg Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31
- Ravel Bolero

Boris Berman - Piano
Mario Venzago - Conductor

Marketing technique is applied to the fullest to the title of this concert - crowd-pleasing Ravel's Bolero. As if the other programs in the concert is not as good as Bolero. It succeeded in enticing me to subscribe to this concert, so I guess MSO has nothing to complain about their marketing department. The concert hall (at least the Stall and the Circle) was quite packed at around 90-95% capacity full and I guess almost 95% of those people, including me, attended this concert mainly because of Bolero.

I subscribed to this concert because of Bolero is a pretty much an orchestral showcase, where there are plenty of solo lines for the principals of the instruments. Musically speaking, it's a - forgive me - pretty much boring piece. I'll elaborate that later.

The concert started with Berlioz's Le Corsaire overture, which I am already familiar with before the concert. It's actually quite a good piece, but it will never reach the status of Symphonie Fantastique. The orchestra played well for this piece and I also discovered some of the pieces that I never picked up in the recording that I had. A little note of the conductor, Mario Venzago: he used big gestures when conducting, and at one point, he danced in the podium. He is the first conductor that I've seen so far in my short concert attending career whose hands went full stretch up and from there, along with his body, sank as low as he possibly can. His gesture is precise and meaningful, however and I actually kind of enjoy how he conducted this piece. A warm applause followed after the end of the piece, which I think it's not enough considering how well the orchestra played the piece.

The second piece of the concert is one of the masterpiece of piano concerto repertoire, the Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466. Before the concert, I have not listened to this concerto in my life. I've listened to a snippet of the 2nd movement at the end of the movie Amadeus, but that's about it. 3 hours before the concert, I went to Youtube and found video of Friedrich Gulda playing this concerto and watched it. A fiery performance, and Gulda's technique is magnificent, I was completely absorbed by his performance. The piece was played more tamely by the MSO, and Berman's playing, while was excellent, did not completely satisfy me in the end. He wasn't as engaging as Gulda, I guess. The first movement lacked a little bit in drama and stormy mood department, but the second movement was delicious. The finale was good, but again, Berman's playing did not reach the level of Gulda's playing for me. The concerto ended well, and long applause followed. Most audience will be disappointed not to be offered an encore. And after this concert, I will definitely start looking for recordings of Mozart's piano concerto.

Now, to the most difficult music of the night, Schoenberg's Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31. The conductor actually made a speech before playing this piece. He said that although the piece was written around 80 years ago, it is still very modern due to its complexity and the 12-tone system. He made anecdote of 12-tone system, saying that Schoenberg's idea of 12-tone system is that every note will be treated in the same manner, just like how everybody has the same rights in the society. However, he also noted that, as with the society, there are some individuals that have more power than the others, and that is also the case with 12-tone system where the notes, B (B flat), A, C, H (B natural) (representing the word BACH) is treated in a more special way. He did not expect the audience to hum or like the piece and he said he's very happy if the audience is attracted just a little to it, just like how people are attracted to Picasso's cubism paintings. Sure enough, the piece was difficult to play and listen. But amidst the lack of melody in the piece, there were lots of things going on in this piece. Lots of variations, chamber-music like variance and a whole lot more such as col legno playing, contrasting materials, extreme dynamics change, and how the motif in the beginning of the piece was heard again near the end of the piece. I actually kinda liked this music and never bored a single moment in this piece. I would be bored if I only listen to the recording, but the sight of how the piece is played by the orchestra really helped me ATTRACTED to the piece. Needless to say, majority of the audience did not like it, only lukewarm applause followed. I even overheard someone saying, "at least they end the concert with something good, the Bolero".

The Bolero itself that I was looking forward to is to me no comparison to Schoenberg's piece. I ended up bored by the same tune played by different instruments again and again. I even wondered if the strings players are actually bored playing pizzicato for most of the piece, only to join the fun in the end with their sweet sound. Don't take me wrong, the orchestra played very well, and the principals were very good. The snare drums player did a fantastic job in keeping the tempo and the dynamics of the notes are very well judged. But during this piece, I contrasted this piece with Schoenberg's and found how simple Ravel's craft is in this piece compared to Schoenberg's. Anyway, enough with the bashing of Bolero, it's still a crowd-pleasing piece, and I myself was and will always be overwhelmed with the full sound of the orchestra when the cymbals and bass-drums crashed down near the end. But I will think thrice to attend Bolero concert again if MSO program this piece next season or two. The audience shouted bravo in the end, and I was the only person that, as far as I can see, applaused not as enthusiast as the rest of the audience.

To sum up, a very good concert, 3 out 4 programs were played brilliantly, the Mozart's piano concerto just a little bit short from brilliant. Discover a new gem of Schoenberg and find myself not-liking-Bolero-so-much-anymore after listening to Schoenberg's piece. Next concert is: Saint-Saens' 2nd piano concerto in 2 (or 3?) weeks time.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 14 June 2008 - Emanuel Ax Plays Chopin

2008-06-14T23:37:00.002+10:00

Featuring:
- Frank Bridge The Sea
- Chopin Piano Concerto No. 2
- Sibelius Symphony No. 5

Emanuel Ax - Piano
Robin Ticciati - Conductor

As the concert title suggests, the main dish of the concert is the Chopin's second piano concerto and that's the very reason why I chose to subscribe to this concert.

The second piano concerto is actually not my favourite piano concerto of Chopin - I very much prefer the first piano concerto -, but the slow movement of the first piano concerto cannot beat the elegant and the beauty of the first opening bars for the piano of the second piano concerto where the famous gorgeous melody lines are played.

2 weeks before the concert, I found out that Emmnuel Ax would be giving a recital in ANAM. The program announced are very interesting, Schubert's Impromptus D. 935, the Sonata in A major, D. 664 and some Chopin works. On the night of the recital, I've felt a bit disappointed when I found out that there was no Chopin pieces in the program and to my further disappointment, Chopin's place is replaced by Liszt - which I am not a big fan of. Nevertheless, the concert was marvelous and the highlight of the concert for me is the A major sonata. I practically smiled throughout the last movement. The dance-like theme in that movement makes me very happy. Emanuel Ax plays brilliantly and the most wonderful thing is, he made Liszt to be at least tolerable to me. His rendition of Mephisto Waltz is almost scary, he really made light of that supposedly difficult piece. In the end, he gave two Chopin's pieces which I am not familiar with, but it was played with such restraints and when the pieces ended, some audience were left sighing and muttered the word 'beautiful'.

Back to today's concert, the concert started with a orchestral piece by Frank Bridge The Sea(MSO really keeps its 'The Voice of the Sea' theme throughout this season). The piece was better than I expected. An impressionist piece, very much like Debussy's La Mer, it actually never bores me. The first movement - Seascape - contains a very delicate dialogue between the oboes and clarinets that interest me very much. The second movement, - Sea-foam - is a scherzo like movement, that again included wonderful passages for the woodwinds. In the third movement, - Moonlight -, the harp player shone. The finale - Storm - is a musical depiction of what would happen if you ever saw a storm in the sea. This movement is illustrated with furious passage in the orchestra, with the percussion - timpani and bass drum provides the additional dramatic scene. A good memorable piece by Frank Bridge.

Next is the second piano concerto by Chopin. I was not affected very much of the music by the first movement (as always been the case), but the music sounded right, so I would say the orchestra and soloist played this movement in the way that how it is supposed to be played. I paid my fullest attention to the opening bars of the second movement just to capture that gorgeous melodies that I've mentioned above. And moments later, the moment came. It was marvelous and I've always been and will be affected by it. The rest of the second movement was gorgeous as well. I always feel disappointed with the orchestration of the finale, somehow, the orchestration just doesn't work. So, I have no comment on it apart from the piano part. The playing is so fine, my heart was actually racing at the very last part of the finale. Loud applause followed and we were given an encore - Nocture in C sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 1.

The gem of this concert - at least for me, because everybody just seemed cannot put the Chopin out of their head - is Sibelius' 5th Symphony. I gave it my first listening last night and it didn't disappoint. And it became much more when I heard it in the concert hall today. I still struggled in the complicated first movement, but the end of this movement is just fantastic. The second movement was played very delicately by the orchestra and I enjoyed the little variation that's going on in it. The finale was intense and arousing. The famous horn line is just wonderful. I had it in my head for at least 2 hours after the concert. It's so gorgeous, depicting 16 swans taking off to the sky at the same time. What a sight it must be for Sibelius when he witnessed it. The very end of the movement was just wonderful. Huge applause from the audience.

A word about the conductor: he's just 25 years of age.

Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde

2008-06-10T00:07:00.003+10:00

A symphony for tenor and alto for voice and orchestra is the description of this work by Mahler himself. Consisting of 6 movements, the tenor and alto are assigned 3 alternating movements starting with the tenor in the first movement and ended with alto's solo in the last movement.

After around 10 listenings of different recordings of this work, from Klemperer, Kubelik, Walter, Haitink and Horenstein, I've came to a conclusion that I prefer the Tenor movements more than I prefer the Alto's. My favourite Tenor for DLvdE is none other than Wunderlich in the Klemperer recordings. I cannot help but drop my jaw everytime I listen to him in the first song, 'The Drinking Song of Earth's Misery'. How he kept himself being outdone from the orchestra sound in the famous ape lines still wonder me. And listen to his gorgeous rendering of more delicate 'Of Youth' and 'The Drunkard in Spring' and you can tell that this recording is for the ages. Other tenors are quite good but I don't think they've ever reached Wunderlich's level.

For the Alto part, my favourite movement is the 'Of Beauty' movement. I always love the transition between the slow tempo to the galloping tempo in the middle of the song describing the arrival of horse-riding-good-looking-young-fella. And Janet Baker's rendering in Haitink's recording is the benchmark for me. She is just too exciting and I can't help myself bouncing to her voice when she delivered her fast passages after the galloping theme from the orchestra. The last movement which has always been perceived as the crown of DLvdE is a little bit too long for me, but Kathleen Ferrier's reading in Walter's recording is too overwhelming so that one cannot but to be moved by her. The second movement is just a little bit too sleepy for me but I've gained a bit more appreciation of it nowadays.

Now when will I have the courage to listen to Mahler's so called earth shattering 9th symphony..I'll make sure that I do it before the end of this month.

Mozart vs. Haydn Symphonies

2008-06-09T23:56:00.003+10:00

I've been listening to Mozart's Symphonies from No. 35-41 and Haydn's Symphonies from No. 101-104 + 94. I admit Mozart's symphonies are prettier, have catchier tune, made me happy and just perfect. But, there's this sophisticated feeling that one gets when listening to Haydn. His symphonies do not have the immediate tune that running in your head after you listen to them (bar the last movement of the 104, I often hummed to it when I'm alone walking on the street), but you will feel that at the end of each of his symphony, Haydn's symphonies are really well constructed hence sophisticated. I don't know how to describe it, but one just have to listen to say Haydn's 102 and contrast it with Mozart's say, 35 or 38. People should really give Haydn more listening. He is undeservedly got low count listening in Last.fm considering he is called 'father of the symphony and string quartet'.

Overall the last symphonies of both composer are my favourite symphonies of them. How can you top the last movement of Jupiter or the bounciness of the finale of the London symphonies? I know I'll never get tired listening to them cause they always make me so happy :)

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 16 May 2008 - Bohemian Rhapsody

2008-05-18T15:44:00.004+10:00

Featuring:
- Antonin Dvorak - Symphony No. 7
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 21 'Elvira Madigan'
- Leos Janacek - Sinfonietta

Alexander Briger - Conductor
Amir Farid - Piano
Calvin Bowman - Organ

2 weeks before this concert, I started listening to Dvorak's 7th symphony. A great work, which is underplayed nowadays because of the immense popularity of his 9th symphony. The starting dance like rhythm of the Scherzo was the highlight of the symphony for me. I haven't listened to any of Mozart's piano concertos in full yet and tonight was my very first time listening to his 21st piano concerto. Janacek's Sinfonietta is a work that I don't even know exist. So, there were 2 programs that I am completely unfamiliar with before the concert.

As usual with MSO's Town Hall Series concert, there is an organ recital by Calvin Bowman. The programs included: Bach's Fantasia on Komm, Heiliger Geist, Herre Gott, BWV 651 which was a little piece with a number of fugal elements in it; Bach's O mensch bewein dein Sunde gross, BWV 622 a prayer like - very serene - piece, and it made me feel very humble when listening to it; Mendelssohn's Allegro in B flat, a short lively piece with no immediate memorable melody, but very enjoyable nonetheless; and finally two pieces from Messiaen's L'Ascension - Alleluias sereins d'une ame qui desire le ciel which was a little too drag out music although it was very interesting at the beginning and Transports de joe d'une ame devant la glore du Christ qui est la sienne which was a more fast-paced and definitely more interesting than the Alleluias.

Now to the main concert: The Dvorak's was good, just a little bit short of great. The conductor conducting without a score, took a very fast paced at the beginning of the symphony. Because of that, clarity of some passages are sacrificed for an extra excitement of the music. The climax of the first movement fell a bit short for me. There was a two to three minutes pause between first and second movement, because apparently more than 50 people were late to the concert! The concert as was told by MSO e-news was sold out. The second movement itself was better executed, so as the third movement's dance-like main theme. The trio was a bit disappointing, I don't know what's wrong with it, but I felt a bit lost when the trio was executed. The return of the main theme was a very good welcome. The finale was brilliant with clear delicate melody from the woodwinds.

Mozart's 21st piano concerto often nicknamed 'Elvira Madigan' because of the prominent use of the music in the movie with that title. It was famous for the lyrical aria-like second movement which was brilliant in the concert. The soloist, Amir Farid gave a very good performance throughout and the orchestra gave a very good accompaniment to a crowd-pleasing music. A very enjoyable piano concert, and I think it's about time I listen to Mozart's piano concertos.

Janacek's Sinfonietta is a quite short but very interesting work featuring 12 trumpets! The opening movement whose theme will be restated in the finale is scored for brass only. The second, third and fourth movement were all very enjoyable. The finale in which the main theme was restated and all the 12 trumpets played at the same time is an uplifting piece of music that will surely leave a good impression for the audience. The audience seemed to have enjoyed the piece very much, which is very good for a rarely played music.

Summing up, a good night out! And the seat that I was assigned to for the remaining Town Hall concerts were wonderful. Am very happy that I subscribed to the Town Hall series.

What I'm currently discovering..

2008-04-20T01:52:00.004+10:00

I have not been doing blogging other things than reviews since my short writings on Edvard Grieg's Lyric Pieces. This is just a general survey of which composers and what pieces of them I'm listening now.

Bach: Concertos for Oboe and Violin.
Beethoven: Choral Fantasy, Missa Solemnis, Diabelli Variations, Early Piano Sonatas.
Mozart: The symphonies (working my way backwards, I have listened to 41, 40, 39, and 38, they're all delicious), Horn Concertos 1-4, Horn Quintet K. 452, Gran Partita (Serenade for 13 winds).
Haydn: The symphonies (working my way backwards - have listened and LOVED all of 104, 103 and 102).
Saint Saens: Piano Concertos (have listened to 1,2 and 5 - loved all of them. Look forward to listening to 3 and 4), Cello Concerto #1, a number of tone poems.
Dvorak: Symphony No. 7 (wonderful piece of music, rivalling 8th and 9th symphonies) - again, working my way backwards.
Mahler: Orchestral Works (working my way FORWARDS, now listening to Das Lied von Der Erde) - only his 9th and 10th symphonies to tackle and I can officially call myself a Mahlerian.
Chopin: Ballades (loved all of them), Scherzos and Impromptus.
Bruch: Scottish Fantasy.
Schubert: Piano Sonatas (working my way backwards, I have only listened to D. 960 and what a piece. Endless beauties.), Impromptus and Moment Musicals.
Mendelssohn: Piano Concerto #2 and some piano works.
Schumann: The symphonies (working my way forwards, now on his 3rd - one more to go!).
Berg: Violin Concerto (I didn't get it in my first two listenings, I'll try again soon!)
Schumann: Introduction and Allegro Appassionato for piano and orchestra, Waldszenen, and piano works (basically Richter's Schumann album on DG).
Tchaikovsky: Orchestral Suites (working my way forwards, loved the first and looking forward to listen to the second).
Sibelius: Karelia Suites and other tone poems.
Brahms: Ein Deutches Requiem.
Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 1, and (relistening to) Symphonic Dances and The Bells.
Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 1 and Piano Concerto No. 4.
Debussy: Orchestral Works.

Lots of music to be discovered. Patience is required.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 19 April 2008 - Song of the Waves, Music of the Spheres

2008-04-20T00:56:00.005+10:00

Featuring:
- Debussy Nocturnes
- Goossens Phantasy Concerto for Piano and Orchestra
- Holst The Planets

Howard Shelley - Piano
Women of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus
Richard Hickox - Conductor

The story behind me attending this concert is no other than Holst's The Planets. I was practically did not care for Debussy's music at that time (2 months ago). MSO's last season concert of Debussy's Images left me sleepy. And who is Goossens? I have never heard of him. So, just for Holst's The Planets only, I got the cheapest ticket for the concert.

The way I looked at Debussy's (and Impressionist music in general) changed again after I listen to Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit and Ma Mere l'Oye. At that time, I only considered Debussy a one-hit wonder with his La Mer. I decided to change my attitude after several listening of the famous Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. And then I moved on to listen to his Nocturnes, which I did not realise was programmed in the concert until yesterday. I liked the piece in the first listening (a rarity for Debussy!), giving special credits to the second and last movement (Fetes and Sirenes). How surprised was I to find out yesterday that I can listen to it performed live by the orchestra.

Now on to the concert itself. It started with the Debussy's pieces. The performance was wonderful throughout and I noticed passages for cor anglais which I could not really identify in the recordings that I listened to. The first movement was very much sustained, but there were plenty of things happening in the piece if you listened to it closely. The second movement, describing a festival, was brilliantly played, and the last movement with the women's chorus hits it home for me. It was just brilliant. However, I felt that the piece did not get appreciated widely by the audience. Most of them looked like they are bored by the piece (which exactly what happened to me when I was in the last season Debussy's concert). Anyway, it doesn't really matter for me what the others thought of the piece. Music always affect people differently.

After some re-arrangement of the orchestra seating, we got an Australian premiere of Goossens' Phantasy Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. It started out interesting, sounding very modern indeed (it was composed around 1944), then it became a tad less interesting, but it became a bit interesting again when we reached the second movement which I felt was a little jazzy. The slow movement, was the one that I gave up on - I really had no idea what's going on in that piece in that movement. The last movement - a very bouncy and rhythmically fast but short in period - served like a wake up call for me after those prolonged boring slow movement. It ended well, but I don't think I can agree to the author of the program notes that mentioned 'It's hard to understand why it's not a standard part of the 20th century piano concerto repertoire'. IMHO, this piece doesn't stand up to Rachmaninoff's 4th piano concerto, both of Ravel's piano concertos and Prokofiev's 3rd and 5th piano concertos. I might give it another listen - after I've found my way with music of Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Schoenberg, Berg, Bartok - to see what I'm missing in the music.

After the interval, it is the main dish of the night and what I think everyone in the concert is going for - The Planets. Mars was exciting, if not too loud in the loudest passages. Venus was great also, with Wilma Smith and David Berlin playing their solo passages very well indeed. It was a heartfelt experience for me. Mercury was bouncy - also well played. Jupiter was full of jollity. I remembered the conductor using occasional rubato and accelerando in this piece and the result was marvelous. I think Saturn was the best of the night. The marvelous playing of the soothing melodies by the harps towards the end of the piece really moved me. Uranus was quite good. Neptune - with the women chorus not on stage! - rounded off a solid performance of the beloved suite by the orchestra. 3 or 4 curtain calls followed after a prolonged applause.

To sum up, a very interesting concert with 2 good performances in the beginning and the end of the concert and a not-so-good performance in the middle. The concert is neither at my all time worst or best concert list.

Next concert: Dvorak's 7th symphony, Mozart's piano concerto no. 21, Janacek's Sinfonietta in approximately one month

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 5 April 2008 - Verdi's Requiem

2008-04-05T22:20:00.003+11:00

Featuring:
- Verdi Messa di Requiem

Aivale Cole - Soprano
Lilli Paasikivi - Mezzo-soprano
Virgilio Marino - Tenor
Askar Abdrazakov - Bass
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus: Jonathan Grieves-Smith - Chorus Master
The Bach Choir London: David Hill - Musical Director
Oleg Caetani - Conductor

Verdi's Requiem, which general public know only from its famous Dies Irae, is a work worth more knowing than the short section of Dies Irae. From the opening cello melody till the last notes, it is full of memorable melodies and events. There is seriously no 'boring' parts in the whole requiem. When I first listened to it, it was the Kyrie that grabbed my attention. Dies Irae followed next and without stop, Tuba Mirum that requires 8 trumpets in total blows my socks off. Other movements that I loved in my premiere listening were Rex Tremendae, Recordare, Confutatis, Lacrimosa, Offertory, and Sanctus. Upon my second listening, I've picked up why Libera Me is legendary. I also grow to appreciate the beautiful Liber Scriptus, Quid Sum Miser, the Tenor solo Ingemisco and lovely duets in Agnus Dei. And after tonight's concert, Verdi's Requiem is definitely my favourite choral works dethroning Mozart's Requiem.

The concert itself was brilliant. The sight of the number of double choirs are already very impressive and I will give them special 'bravo' again because they performed wonderfully. Dies Irae and Tuba Mirum gave me goosebumps and what magnificent Sanctus! The orchestra players played as if their lives are on the line. I could not really pick a highlight of good orchestral playing overall since the level of playing in that concert is really really high. The soloists themselves are wonderful although I would prefer the Tenor to sing a little bit louder. Sometimes his voice seemed to be overwhelmed by his other soloists and the chorus. However, his rendition of the Offertory was really brilliant. The bass really shone in Confutatis. The beautiful mezzo-soprano soared in Liber Scriptus and Lacrimosa and her Soprano counter parts did a wonderful job in Libera Me. Their duets in Recordare was just heart-melting.

The hall was more than 97% full, and from what I heard, the hall was sold out for the previous 2 days. The audience were well-behaved and applaused enthusiastically at the end of the concert. One of the best concerts that I've ever attended.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 8 March 2008 - John Williams in Concert

2008-03-10T00:47:00.002+11:00

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.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 1 March 2008 - Nigel Kennedy plays Mozart and Beethoven

2008-03-06T19:44:00.005+11:00

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.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 8 December 2007 - Echoes of Intimate Emotions

2007-12-08T17:17:00.000+11:00

Featuring:
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 1 'Winter Daydreams'
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 'Pathetique'

Oleg Caetani - Conductor

No review will be written since...I missed the concert :'(. Being a smartass, I did not check the time of the performance and assumed the concert will be in the evening at 8 PM. So, at 4 PM, when the thoughts of listening to Tchaikovsky live overwhelmed me already, I finally opened up the envelope containing the ticket to the concert. To my horror, the concert time listed there is 2:00 PM. Yeah, my face turned green at the same time. The concert has just finished and I missed my last concert before I fly back to my home country on next Monday.

Sigh. Stupid me. Hopefully, this will teach me a good lesson to check the ticket the day before the concert.

!$!#!@#!$!#$@#%

Edvard Grieg's Lyric Pieces

2007-11-29T02:44:00.000+11:00

Just finished listening to the legendary recording of Emil Gilels playing selections of these Grieg's wonderful and brilliant miniature compositions for solo piano. These are some fine examples of 'delicious' classical music. All pieces are very approachable and Gilels' playing is superb throughout.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 24 November 2007 - Sir Charles Returns

2007-11-24T22:52:00.001+11:00

Featuring:
- Richard Wagner Tannhauser: Overture and Venusberg Music
- Antonin Dvorak Serenade for Strings
- Frederick Delius A Village Romeo and Juliet: The Walk to the Paradise Garden
- Edward Elgar Enigma Variations

Sir Charles Mackerras - Conductor

First post after what seems like forever! Thesis and exams have been distracting me between my last post to now. I've completed my thesis near the end of October and the exams were over on Monday earlier this week. Hopefully, I will have more time to write what new works that I've discovered in between this period sometimes later.

Now for the concert itself. It started with Wagner's music. And it did not disappoint. The famous Tannhauser overture is brilliantly executed. Those ff passages were really hair-raising. The Venusberg music is in contrast in terms of dynamics to the overture. Lovely melodies throughout this piece and the first program ends wonderfully.

The second program - Dvorak's Serenade for Strings - is the reason why I attended this concert. Full of wonderful melodies throughout the entire piece, I fell in love in the first time with the haunting opening melodies of the first movement. The piece was taken slightly faster than what I'm used to, but the charm of the melodies is still there. The waltz in the second movement were also brilliant. The third movement was also well done. The audience applauded after this movement, presuming the brilliant finish in the end of this movement to be the end of the piece. Afterwards, the lovely fourth movement was played and almost without pause, the Presto passages in the final movement were now in action. By the end of this piece, I know that it already made my night.

After the interval, we were then given Delius' music. Not very familiar with his music, I found his music is okay-ish. The melody of the piece was gorgeous, but forgettable. The piece itself was a typical music describing the love between the two characters in the story. Again, it was really well played and probably it's just me who was not very impressed with the composition of the music.

The last piece, Enigma variations was wonderful also. Specifically, I'm pretty sure the Nimrod variation touched every audience's heart. Some other variations that made quite an impression to me were the Ysobel and Dorabella variations with the orchestra principal violist shone during the Ysobel variation.

Now the conductor himself, Sir Charles Mackerras. He looks very old and his age has really slowed him down. His conducting was still full of energy and although he required no baton for all of tonight's program, he never lost control of orchestra's discipline. Long applause from the audience showed how tonight's music has pleased them. I just hope that this is not the last time I see him on the conductor podium.

To conclude, a memorable night with lots of wonderful melodies and a chance to see a world-class in action is icing on the cake.

Next concert: Tchaikovsky's first and sixth symphonies.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 6 October 2007 - The Great Tradition

2007-10-06T23:17:00.000+10:00

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

2007-10-02T00:39:00.001+10:00

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.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 28 September 2007 - Organ Spectacular

2007-09-28T22:24:00.001+10:00

Featuring:
- Howard Hanson Elegy in Memory of Serge Koussevitzky
- Richard Mills Soundscapes for Percussion and Orchestra
- Camille Saint-Saens Symphony No. 3 'Organ'

Richard Mills - Conductor
Claire Edwardes - Percussion
Calvin Bowman - Organ

To be honest, I went to this concert because of the Organ Symphony. Got my ticket on the day of the performances and there's really not much seats left to choose from although I really wanted to get a seat in the balcony. In the end, I sat at the second last row of the hall - Melbourne Town Hall -. As a result, I couldn't see the whole orchestra clearly, but that's to be expected from the cheapest ticket.

There was an organ recital before the concert, featuring works by Bach, Liszt and Graeme Koehne - a living Australian composer apparently -. Bach's Prelude and Fugue in E flat has typical Bach's melody with some of passages resembled much of the first movement of his second Brandenburg Concerto - I think -. Liszt's Consolation in D flat impressed me the most out of the whole piece performed. This strikes me because I think Liszt is a not-so-good composer. Koehne' Gothic Toccata starts out slow and soft only to develop into an abrupt and very - VERY - loud piece. An old lady sitting beside me even covered her ears during the very end of the piece. She said, "It reminds me of factory sound or rail train". It looks like she had some bad memories on that topic and she was trying to stop the organ sound reaching her ears - a futile effort. Despite that, I kinda like the piece and I think it will be very fitting for a war or battle scene in the movie. By the way, the organist is Calvin Bowman, he also played the organ part in Saint-Saens symphony later.

And now the main program, the concert starts with Howard Hanson's elegy. A piece written in memory of his friend and great conductor - Serge Koussevitzky, the piece was good. It has this simple melody that I unfortunately have forgotten (Sorry Hanson!), that keeps reappearing in the elegy representing the deceased great conductor. The audience's reception was not very enthusiastic - the conductor did not appear the second time after he went backstage as the applause died down shortly after it started.

Now the second program - a work composed by the conductor. The lovely soloist, Claire Edwardes took the stage and literally blazed through the piece written as a concerto for percussion. She played at least 7 or 8 different instruments in total, some of them I didn't even recognise. The concert is full of virtuosity showmanship, fast passages in xylophone and tambourine and in one movement, she played the drums faster than a professional rock or band drummer - no kidding. The concerto also featured plenty of musical sound that represents the sounds of 'bull-frogs and crickets at night in Brisbane gardens'. A wonderful piece and audience seemed to be thrilled by the soloist's performance. Long applause followed.

Last program, the highlight of the night - Organ Symphony. The first movement was slightly slower than the recordings that I'm familiar with but was very well-played. The second movement is the best moment of the concert for me, I shivered throughout the whole movement. Again, it was a tad slower than the recordings that I know but that's what makes the difference - I enjoyed every single note of that movement. Also, I noticed the sweet organ part in that movement which I never know its existence in the recordings. The rest of the symphony is played brilliantly by the orchestra. My slight complaint was the timpani strikes at the end of the symphony wasn't as loud as I wanted it to be. The organ completely overpowered the poor timpani and as a result the timpani wasn't exactly highlighted during that time - which I very much like to be the case. The audience then erupted after the end of the symphony and after quite a long applause, we were given an encore - the famous Faure's Pavane.

Summing up, a very fun and memorable night. Not happy with the seating - I should've gotten a balcony seat to have a better view of the orchestra. The programs were well-played and very enjoyable. Live orchestral music is still worth going. And this concert was almost full-house (99% of the seats are occupied) - the 'crowdiest' concert I've been to.

Next concert: Schumann's piano concerto - next week!

Mozart == sweet

2007-09-27T21:54:00.000+10:00

It happened again!

Everytime I listened to one of Mozart's concertos 'sweet' is the first word that comes out of my brain to describe every single of them. His clarinet concerto, oboe concerto, and 5 violin concertos have always did it for me and today I was listening to his Flute and Harp concerto (K. 299). It was my second listening of this piece. I liked it very much when I listened to the recording by Emmanuel Pahud (flute) and Marie-Pierre Langlamet (harp) with Abbado conducting BPO and it was no different when listening to it in period instruments sound. Unfortunately, I didnot know the name of the soloists, but the recording is by Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra conducted by Ton Koopman.

The whole concerto is full of joy - very Mozartian - with the lyrical opening of second movement instantly hits the mark for me. Just listen to the simple theme played by the orchestra and then the same theme is repeated by both of the soloists - ah, sweetness :). The first and last movement are equally enjoyable although I can't remember how the main theme sounds like again. I will listen to it sometime again soon.

By the way, I still have tons of Mozart pieces that I want to listen to. 2 weeks ago, I bought a CD of all his horn concertos that I haven't touched yet. I still have to listen to both of his flute concertos and bassoon concertos. And last but not least, his 27 piano concertos are still in my unknown territory. I should get them soon.

What is appreciating?

2007-09-26T23:48:00.000+10:00

Appreciating classical music is a process in which you take some time in your daily life to listen to a classical music piece in order to be familiar with them. For me, it will be until I can practically whistle through the whole piece (or at least the main themes of the piece). To be able to do this, repeated listening is necessary. While this process can sometimes be tiring, the satisfaction that one got after the end of this process is very rewarding. There is nothing that can give me more satisfaction than come to terms with Mahler's Resurrection (I fell asleep twice(!) when trying to love this symphony because the recording that I have for this symphony at that time is a particularly boring one and I have to get myself a different recording).

I was introduced by the concept of repeated listening from this article. Back then (almost 2 years ago) I was a newbie in classical music and was trying to find a guide in the world of classical music. I found this article by accident and after reading that I was instantly motivated by it to discover and appreciate more classical music.

First post!

2007-09-26T23:26:00.000+10:00

First post for hopefully long-time running blog of me finding new piece out of tons of classical music out there and learning to love them.

Currently listening to Felix Mendelssohn's - Symphony No. 3 'Scottish'.