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.
Monday, 10 March 2008
Thursday, 6 March 2008
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 1 March 2008 - Nigel Kennedy plays Mozart and Beethoven
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.
- 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.
Saturday, 8 December 2007
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 8 December 2007 - Echoes of Intimate Emotions
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.
!$!#!@#!$!#$@#%
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 1 'Winter Daydreams'
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 'Pathetique'
Oleg Caetani - Conductor
No review will be written since...I missed the concert :'(. Being a smartass, I did not check the time of the performance and assumed the concert will be in the evening at 8 PM. So, at 4 PM, when the thoughts of listening to Tchaikovsky live overwhelmed me already, I finally opened up the envelope containing the ticket to the concert. To my horror, the concert time listed there is 2:00 PM. Yeah, my face turned green at the same time. The concert has just finished and I missed my last concert before I fly back to my home country on next Monday.
Sigh. Stupid me. Hopefully, this will teach me a good lesson to check the ticket the day before the concert.
!$!#!@#!$!#$@#%
Thursday, 29 November 2007
Edvard Grieg's Lyric Pieces
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.
Saturday, 24 November 2007
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 24 November 2007 - Sir Charles Returns
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.
- 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.
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.
Tuesday, 2 October 2007
Aram Khachaturian's Violin Concerto in D minor
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.
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.
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