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.
Sunday, 17 May 2009
Friday, 15 May 2009
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 15 May 2009 - Dream
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.
- 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.
Saturday, 18 April 2009
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 18 April 2009 - The Emperor
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.
- 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.
Monday, 23 March 2009
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 21 March
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.
- 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.
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!
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 14 March 2009 - Before the Icons
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.
- 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.
Sunday, 8 March 2009
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 6 March 2009 - Resurrection
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.
- 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.
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