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.
Showing posts with label weber. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weber. Show all posts
Tuesday, 11 August 2009
Saturday, 30 August 2008
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 29 August 2008 - Three Great Romantics
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.
- 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.
Saturday, 6 October 2007
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 6 October 2007 - The Great Tradition
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.
- 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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)