Proper blog post..

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 20 May 2009 - Victory!

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.

Australian Chamber Orchestra concert 10 November 2008 - Euphoric Tour

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.