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.
Showing posts with label sibelius. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sibelius. Show all posts
Saturday, 1 August 2009
Sunday, 15 March 2009
Australian Chamber Orchestra concert 15 March 2009 - Inner Voices Tour
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!
- 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!
Saturday, 14 June 2008
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 14 June 2008 - Emanuel Ax Plays Chopin
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.
- 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.
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